Riots and Business Insurance Claims For Property Damage

The impact of riots on the community can have long-lasting and unforeseen effects.
Riots may not last very long, but the time to put a community back to where it was takes a lot longer.
For a business or property owner the work ahead can be daunting.
The actual damage to each premise needs to be accessed and repaired.
This can take time and may depend on whether adequate insurance was taken out to cover the damage.
If adequate insurance is in place insurance companies need to access the damage.

Putting Things Right

There maybe damage to the property, injury to staff, residents, tenants and owners.
Tenants maybe homeless. New temporary accommodation needs to be found.
Loss Adjusters need to be appointed to look and access the damage and give authority for repair work to commence. Quotations from repairers have to be given and of how long and when work can commence once agreed.

ABI Plea For Longer Riot Claims Period Approved By UK Government

The Association of British Insurance companies, the ABI, has issued a statement clarifying the position of Insurance and Claims for Riot Damage.

The ABI warn…..

On current estimates insured losses and damage suffered by individuals and UK businesses are likely to be well over £100 million.
The ABI has reassured customers that they are covered for riot damage under their home and business insurance and claims will be paid by their insurer as quickly as possible. People with insurance should claim directly from their insurer as soon as they can.

Home Insurance Money Saving Tips

How can you reduce your Home Insurance Costs?
When it comes to home insurance, many people simply accept the first quote that they are given without ever looking for alternatives.
However, there are several things that you can do to help reduce the cost of your building insurance and contents insurance.
Obviously, depending on where you live your home insurance is always going to cost a certain amount, but it is definitely worth taking steps to reduce your costs as much as possible.
Were your calculations accurate?
When you take out insurance, you will generally be asked how much you want to cover your home for.
For example, when you take out building insurance you will have to specify a value in case the worst should happen and your home needs to be rebuilt from scratch.

A Brief History of Insurance: Part 7 Lloyds and the London Market

A Brief History of Insurance:
Part seven: A small coffee shop called Lloyd’s
Welcome back to this series which aims to briefly plot the key times and places in the historical journey of insurance, from the earliest Chinese civilisations some seven thousand years ago right through to the modern day. As we discovered in the last article in this series, the seventeenth century was of major importance to the development of insurance.
The tragedy of the Great Fire of London saw the first insurance company The Fire Office appear and soon after a number of competing fire insurers had arrived including Sun Fire Office, which we now know today as RSA – one of the largest insurers in the word.
We also discovered that the era was one of great advancement in the field of mathematics, which led to the emergence of first true development of actuarial systems and relatively sophisticated risk management models.
Of course no history of insurance would be complete without reference to Lloyd’s of London and it was during this same period of innovation within insurance, that Mr. Edward Lloyd opened his first coffee shop in Tower Street, London.

It needs to be mentioned that the coffee shop of the seventeenth century was a far more important venue within a society than your local Starbucks or Costa Coffee is today. In fact at this time the coffee shop was a relatively new phenomenon in Europe.

UK Insurance Fraud On The Rise Despite More Detection!

We’ve predicting it here at Insurance Blog for quite some time and now its official..
Insurance Fraud is on the rise again!
A symptom of every recession, the difference this time is that detection rates of Insurance Fraud are also on the increase, but that doesn’t seem to be bothering those intent on criminal deceit, according to the latest figures released today by the ABI (Association of British Insurers).

They Never Learn!

You could not make it up but some false claimants did.
Insurers are detecting more fraudulent claims than ever: over 2,500 worth £18 million every week

A gymnast with back trouble, a flying toilet roll holder, an invented wedding engagement, a fake photograph and an invisible wall were among the record number of fraudulent insurance claims detected by insurers in 2010, state the ABI.

Solicitors Are To Blame For Car Insurance Premium Hikes!

Many people have been in shock this year when their annual car insurance renewal document lands on the doormat. Premiums have risen by as much as a third this year if reports by some major UK car insurers are to be believed. This has even led to former Home and Foreign Secretary Blackburn MP Jack Straw to write to the Times today calling for a reform to the motor insurance industry.

So what has gone so wrong? Why are we paying more for motor cover?

Well first we were told it was uninsured drivers, two million of them apparently, that were pushing up the costs of car insurance because the Insurance Companies were having to pay more into the collective fund, administered by the Motor Insurance Bureau, to cover the costs of claims against drivers with no cover.

A Brief History of Insurance: Part Six- The First Insurance Company

The World’s First Insurance company -The Fire Office and a man called Halley
In the last article in this series we had arrived at the seventeenth century after a whistle-stop tour of the continuous evolution of insurance across the last 7,000 years or so!
We had just discovered that what is generally regarded as the worlds first ever Insurance company – The Fire Office, was created from the ashes of the Great Fire of London and it is with the Fire Office that we shall continue our journey through the history of insurance….
‘The Fire Office’ was opened by Nicholas Barbon not long after the Great Fire had ravaged some 13,000 homes across the English capital. Barbon himself is acknowledged as being one of the first proponents of the free market and a leading economist and financial speculator of the time – he also had a ruthless eye for a business opportunity.
Predictably as the Fire Office flourished so other companies soon mirrored his business model and a precedent had now been created for insurance to evolve once more. Providing insurance was no longer limited to wealthy private individuals, but instead a developing industry, with dedicated companies establishing specialist commercial insurance and personal insurance products.

A Brief History of Insurance: Part 5 Post Renaissance Europe

More today from Insurance Blog for you scholars of Insurance as we take you into Post Renaissance Europe and the Great Fire of London in part five of A Brief History of Insurance:
In previous articles within this series we have discovered that forms of risk management have existed for well over seven thousand years with the ancient Chinese cultures kicking things off, before the Babylonian King Hammurabi laid down the first recorded insurance laws.
These laws, grounded in solid economic common sense spread across the trading nations of the time to land in the Mediterranean where they refined by first the Greeks and then the Romans. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, once again it was a sea faring merchant empires that shaped the further development of Insurance.

Nightclub Insurance Risks – Remembering Summerland

Times have changed, fashions have changed, the music has changed and the dances have changed, even Insurance Blog has changed; but the risks to nightclubs remain as powerful as ever since Britain’s worst ever nightclub disaster, which killed more than 50 clubbers and seriously injured over 80 others, 38 years ago at the Summerland Resort Complex on the Isle of Man in August 1973.
The Summerland complex was opened 40 years ago in May 1971 in Douglas on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.
The 3.5 acre resort was cut into the cliff on the promenade and claimed to be the biggest and most innovative indoor entertainment centre in the World, providing artificial sunshine all year round for the holiday resort. 
The aim was to attract British holidaymakers to the Island to compete with the threat posed by the rapid development of package holidays to Spain, that were becoming ever popular with the public.
The Summerland Resort was a spectacular success…..until it’s destruction by fire.

FSA To Clampdown On Insurance Selling On The Internet In The UK

The FSA may well have the axe hanging over it’s head, be over-populated by a bunch of pen pushers and bureaucrats, culpable for the restriction in insurance products and markets available and be responsible for failing to avert the recession caused by the banks, but…….
Insurance Blog will be the first to admit that the FSA in it’s swansong is at least trying to do the right thing, with some notable recent successes in prosecutions and forcing the banks to heel over the mis-selling of payment protection insurance.
Those small insurance brokers, insurance agents, consultants and intermediaries whose rising FSA authorisation costs and annual fees have helped fund the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to pay for the banks mis-selling crimes would be the first to disagree, however their contempt for the organisation might be tempered some if they were aware of the FSA’s latest moves against their largest competitors……
The Insurance price comparison websites and aggregators selling general insurance products on the Internet.
If the FSA’s latest proposals for the regulated Selling of Insurance on the Internet are enforced, this could be a good thing for all small insurance intermediaries out there, who collectively currently receive less than 5% of the total internet traffic searching for Insurance.

Making Business Insurance Decisions Easy for Business Owners

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. If you are starting out in business or reviewing your initial company procedures and processes you will be faced by an endless choice of decisions to make.
Whilst the potential rewards of running a successful business drive them onwards, there are many challenges faced by small business owners, especially during the initial outset of the business when methods and procedures are being put in place. None more so when trying to navigate through the vagaries of business insurance risks and covers, which vary widely depending upon the type of business you engage in.
So where do you start to try to understand the risks that your business might face and the types of insurance that are available to protect your business from these risks?
Fortunately this has been recognised by specialist small business insurer, Hiscox who understands that business owners want to focus on what they do best – running their business.
So they have created a Business Insurance Decision Tree in the form of an infographic to help steer small business owners through the different types of insurance available to them.

A Brief History of Insurance: Part 4 Genoa and the first ever single independent insurance contracts

In this the fourth article on Insurance Blog within this series exploring the origins of insurance we move to Medieval Europe and the invention of separate insurance contracts in 14th Century Genoa…
As you may recall from earlier articles within this series, both the Romans and the Greeks had contributed to the development of insurance, shaping it into the complex financial product that it is now quite considerably. However it was from the ashes of the Roman empire that we see insurance start to fully develop.
As we move through history and reach the medieval period which is universally acknowledged as beginning when the western Roman Empire fell in 471AD, we see the Guilds rise to prominence and amongst their functions is something remarkably akin to that of the early Roman Burial Clubs. However, they also provide rudimentary medical insurance, fire insurance, marine insurance and even personal accident insurance to their members as well as a whole host of other social and economic benefits.
In fact despite the fall of the Empire the insurance practices that have become part of every day life across Europe for Merchants, Noblemen and Serfs alike remain in place. With the importance of insurance now firmly established as a key element within any society with commerce at its heart, the varieties of insurance and the complexity of the products continues to develop throughout the Middle Ages.

A brief history of Insurance: Part 3 Roman Life Insurance

Part Three: Roman Burial Clubs – the precursor to modern life insurance:
Welcome back to this fascinating series exploring the history of insurance…
To briefly recap, in the previous article we discovered that many phrases we are still aware of today within marine insurance such as General Average and indeed the very concept of Maritime Loans were created by the ancient Greek civilisation nearly two and a half millennia ago.
As with so much of the Greek culture these concepts of early insurance were integrated and absorbed into Roman culture which followed. It was under the influence of the arguably more economically aware Romans that these concepts began to become more progressively monetised and more in keeping with our understanding of modern insurance.
However one area of insurance that was to last throughout the ages clearly originated solely as a Roman concept – this was in fact Life Insurance.

Mobile Phone Insurance – The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Insured

Technology.  A source of wonder and frustration in equal measures.
A shimmering, sophisticated thread woven intricately into the tapestry of our 21st century world.
It certainly makes one feel old to think that some of my favorite, futuristic works of science fiction are now set in the past.
The space odyssey was ten years ago, the evil Arnie robot sent from the future arrived sixteen years ago (and is now an American Politician!?!), and 1984 happened, well in 1984.
Only nine years to go and we’ll all be chowing down on some Soylent Green.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, the future and all its wondrous, technological gadgetry has well and truly arrived and what better example of modern technology than the mobile phone.
It seems like only yesterday when the mobile phone first became common place, yet it was indeed over a decade ago that we first all became addicted to playing snake on our green dot matrix phones. How out dated those phones of the late nineties now seem compared to today’s magical smart phones?
But try to cast your mind back just that little bit further, to those dark days before we all went mobile.
Just how on earth did we get by?

How Insurance Shares Risk Across The Population And Aims For Fair Premiums

Insurance Blog often gets unusual requests, more proof that Insurance is not grey and boring, the latest being particularly unusual so we thought we’d rise to the challenge.
A mature student friend of ours was struggling with his first year accountancy exams when asked to write an essay on the following, so he thought he’d approach us for some answers and help writing his assignment.
1.Explain how Insurance shares risk across the population?
2.What is a fair insurance premium?
3.How can adverse selection prevent Insurance being available at a fair premium?
4.What strategies do insurance companies follow to reduce the problem of adverse selection?
So we farmed it out to our technical expert Dave Healey and this is what he came up with.
The Primary Functions Of Insurance As A Service Industry
By Dave Healey
There are three primary functions of Insurance which determine how Insurance companies operate and how the public interacts with these companies.

Payment Protection Insurance Claims cost Lloyds Bank £3.2 Billion

On of the major players in the Credit Crunch which had to be bailed out by the UK taxpayer and contributed to the current deficit  – Lloyds Banking Group – has announced today that it has set aside a £3.2bn provision for claims from clients that they were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI), which accounts for the bulk of the £3.7 billion loss it has reported.

Lloyds Bank  has decided to settle all the PPI misselling claims after UK banks lost a High court judicial review called by Barclays and others over PPI  claims compensation last month.
Payment protection insurance also known as ASU, Income Protection Insurance and Mortgage Protection Insurance,  was sold by the large banking corporations at inflated rates to cover in particular credit cards, personal loans and mortgage repayments  if income ceases or falls because of accident sickness or unemployment.
Since 2009 thousands of Uk complainants have received compensation because their policies were mis-sold. Missold, because they were sold policies that were either not explained to them, did not cover them because of certain exclusions or in the majority of cases was only taken out for fear of not obtaining the loan.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) published guidelines last year which said banks should contact all PPI past policyholders to ask them to complain if they believed they had been mis-sold PPI.

Professional Indemnity Insurance Buyers Guide

5 Things To Ask Yourself Before You Buy Professional Indemnity Insurance

The What, When, How, Where and Why Guide to Indemnity Insurance for professionals.

Professional Indemnity Insurance is designed to protect you when a problem arises with any professional work you have done. In today’s litigation culture, this form of insurance is becoming increasingly relevant for a range of professions.
Are you thinking about Professional Indemnity Insurance?
Before you buy, it pays to consider the crucial 5 questions:
What exactly is Professional Indemnity Insurance?
Professional Indemnity (PI) Insurance is designed to protect you in the case of professional error. In the course of your working life an instance may occur where unfortunately, the professional skill you exhibit is deemed inadequate. In this situation, a dissatisfied client may seek some form of compensation, resulting in financial implications for you and your business. This is where PI Insurance comes in: it provides financial support for defence costs, withheld fees and any compensation which may be awarded against you. In simple terms, Professional Indemnity Insurance is financial protection against professional error.
Why do I require PI Insurance?

The Bad Boys of Insurance

The UK Insurance industry watchdog the FSA has been very busy in it’s final year of existence before it is replaced by another quango, and has published figures of which firms are the most complained about by consumers. The FSA is keen to point out that the larger the operation the more likely there are to be complaints about that firms services or products and that the figures do not constitute a league table of bad boys.
Hmm……..what do they show then?
Here’s the top fifty of the most complained about Insurance companies in the UK:
Firm name | Number of complaints opened |Number of complaints closed |Complaints closed within 8 weeks (%) | Closed complaints upheld by firm (%)
Lloyds TSB Bank Plc 84,775 39,789 97 68
Barclays Bank Plc 59,003 40,230 65 68

Do You Know What Your Home Insurance Really Covers You For?

How many of us actually read our insurance policy documents when they drop through the letterbox? Insurance Blogger has just renewed my home insurance and the particular policy booklet is thicker than the local freeads, that arrived at the same time. So this got me thinking about all those people who purchase home insurance cover online and are probably under-insured in some minor or major way!
Although many people who own their own houses in the UK are likely to have some type of basic insurance policy on their property, the extent of that cover, sometimes turns out to be entirely inadequate for the misfortunate few who thought they had bought a good deal.
Stop for a moment and think: You have worked hard to purchase and maintain your house. Why risk losing it or its contents because you have tried to save on your home insurance and have not considered what really needs to be covered?
Specialist House Insurance – The Problem with Standard Home Insurance
If you have a standard home insurance policy, you might think your home’s contents are completely covered under your contents insurance section. Although this could be right to a certain degree, the thing is that some types of home insurance policies that put limitations and restrictions on the cover they supply as described in the policy booklet and online keyfacts documents.

Google Buys Insurance Aggregator Beatthatquote.com

Meerkats and Opera Singers beware: Google are coming
The big insurance industry story that made the headlines of both the trade papers and the nationals this month was mega global search engine come media owner come O/S provider come whatever else they are now, company Google have bought financial comparison site Beat That Quote for a cool £37.7m.
It was an interesting if somewhat fairly inevitable move from the mega global search engine come…. well you get the point.
I say inevitable as apart from the fact that Google are trying to get their grubby little mitts into pretty much every possible vertical there is to be had, it was also a fairly well known industry ‘secret’ that they were looking to step into the financial comparison site arena, ever since news of their failed attempt to purchase LoveMoney.com.
In many ways Beat That Quote fit the acquisition profile perfectly for Google. They are a ‘two click’ property (a website which has short, quick user journey) and Google have often shown a taste for these in the past.  Also the business model of aggregators is proven to be successful as long as you have traffic and Google have more traffic than you can shake a big, digital stick at.