I am responding to letters published in last week's issue (November 7), written by Grant Ellis and Ian Mantel.
In the new year, the Office of Fair Trading intends to announce its decision on whether or not to grant the General Insurance Standards Council (GISC) an exemption from the provisions of the Competition Act 1998, which includes the infamous proposed GISC rule F42 – join the GISC or its member insurers will force you out of business.
Interestingly, research recently conducted has revealed that the idea behind rule F42 may not have been original GISC thinking after all. By delving deep into archives once thought lost forever by the Criminal Records Office, it has now come to light that, over twenty years ago, East End firm Kray Bros Enterprises (KBE), first came up with the highly lucrative recruitment idea and slogan of, "join our club, or your business might suffer". Researchers now, with assistance from leading DNA scientists, are trying to establish if there is any link between GISC board members and the now deceased proprietors of KBE.
It would not be appropriate, at present, for us to speculate on the likely outcome of this research or the deliberations of the director general of fair trading.
In the meantime, we at the IIB believe that we have done, and will continue to do, everything humanly possible, to ensure that all members of the insurance broking profession have a choice regarding their regulatory (and directly related) commercial destiny – including the freedom of Messrs Ellis and Mantel to join the GISC voluntarily.
May I take this opportunity of wishing all readers of Insurance Times a very merry Christmas.
--
Andrew N. Paddick,
Director General
IIB
Incredible bulk
I have commented in the past both to Insurance Times and direct to insurers about the ever increasing weight of insurers' documentation which, via courier, was costing them very little to send to us in bulk – but a fortune to brokers when sending to individual customers.
Bland excuses about anti-jargon and policyholder friendly layout/wording was the companies' response, with no change to documentation.
Now the courier service appears to have gone belly-up, lo and behold, one company's new policy booklets have reduced from A4 and 200g in weight to A5 and 86g.
I'd like to believe it's a sign that they do listen to brokers and consider those overheads as well as their own. But unfortunately, I think it's more to do with them having to pay Royal Mail prices.
--
Janet Thurlow
M Thurlow & Co
Cuffley
Hertfordshire
Time for bouquets
In these days when insurers and loss adjusters take a lot of brickbats, we felt that we should put pen to paper (or should that be keyboard to email) to report on an incident that happened to one of our clients.
An explosion and fire occurred over the weekend of August 12. We picked up a message on our answering machine and contacted GAB Robins' out of hours service. The company was on the phone to the clients in minutes – and in fact when we were talking to our client explaining what was to happen the client's other phone was ringing and guess who it was – GAB Robins.
The claim involved a large and complicated business interruption element. There has been a real will on the part of Phil Beadsmore and Keith Fox at GAB Robins and the claims people at NU Liverpool, Carol Birrel and Colin Warhurst, to assist the client in arranging interim payments. The payments needed to be channelled through NU's head office but this did not delay matters as the NU people at head office arranged the payments in two working days by CHAPS electronic transfer. All this was done with great professionalism.
The settlement of the claim is now drawing to a conclusion and has demonstrated a seamless partnership between client, broker, insurer and loss adjuster.
The response from our client was: "We now know the insurances you arranged are of real value. The actions of you all kept us in business."
--
Colin F Lees ACII
Managing director
Lymm Insurance Brokers
Twisted system
"Co-operation", or simply mindless money making?
After reading James Bell's letter (Insurance Times November 16), regarding insurers' attitudes to solicitors, I felt that a very important issue was missed.
Mr Bell defended a statement from a previous letter saying solicitors did everything possible to ensure claimants received the maximum settlement possible.
Now, working in the claims department for an intermediary which specialises in leisure liability, I see an ever-escalating influx of simply outrageous claims – via solicitors, I hasten to add.
Let me start with an example. We insure a paintball operator that obviously operates in woodland. It received a booking from a well known catering company. One of the company's employees was playing the game when, suddenly, she stood on a dead branch, and twisted her ankle. It was a perfectly obvious hazard, which you would take for granted prior to playing.
However, a clever solicitor, and the increasing cost of defending claims, resulted in a claim settlement of over £2,000 under the public liability policy of the operator. Some may argue that this is peanuts to an insurance company, but not when this type of claim is landing on my desk more and more frequently, and being settled. The result is drastically increasing premiums for people simply trying to earn a living.
I do realise that this is mostly a reflection of today's society, but feel that solicitors have a duty to turn this type of clientele away and pursue genuine claims. Or do they just have dollar signs in their eyes?
The overall problem, in my opinion, is greed. Insurance companies own a large pie, and frankly, everybody wants a piece.
Where will it end?
--
L Kendall
Leisureinsure.co.uk
Web is just one tool
Roger Foord's article "Drop an e into your strategy" (Insurance Times, November 23) is absolutely right to state that it is just as important for the general insurance industry to establish an online presence as for any other sector.
Our recent survey of the top 300 UK general insurers and brokers revealed that 33.3% of the industry had appointed a head of ecommerce. This is a sound indication that the sector is beginning to take on board the importance of web-enablement, particularly considering that the cross-sector average head of ecommerce appointments came out at a mediocre 28.9%.
However, actual website capabilities were more disappointing. General insurers came bottom of the league, scoring poorly due to a lack of site interactivity. Sites appeared limited to company and product information.
But before we lambast general insurers for failing to embrace the online world, it is important to remember that a website, although a vital tool for strengthening brand values and finding out information on your customers, may not be the preferred transaction channel for every customer. The speed with which an industry offers online trading is not necessarily a simple guarantee of success for that web-enablement process. The most important goal is to offer customers the functions they want, consistently, across all communications channels.
--
Mike Adams
Chief Operating Officer
Knowledge Accelerators
mikea@knowledge-accelerators.com
