Zurich Minicipal has stepped in to save Yuletide swimmers this Christmas.

The 25th Lowestoft Annual Christmas Day swim was due to be abandoned because of rising insurance premiums. But within 24 hours of its cancellation, Zurich Municipal had stepped in to provide public liability and personal accident insurance, for a lower premium than last year.

This year will be the 25th year that hundreds of `Yule Tiders' have splashed into the North Sea on Lowestoft's sea front on Christmas Day morning to raise money for local organisations who help disadvantaged people in the region

Zurich Municipal confirmed that similar problems have been encountered elsewhere. In one recent example it was reported that the Atlow Mill Centre in Derbyshire, a charity which helps children with behavioural problems, was facing closure because of an increase in insurance costs. Zurich Municipal's Community Insurance Centre responded to this case in October and helped them to continue to offer services to young people in the area.

Ronan Ball, mnderwriting manager, Community Insurance Centre, Zurich Municipal, said: "The growing compensation culture in our increasingly litigious society, property damage caused by storms and floods, and increasing trends of arson attacks and workplace stress claims have all placed pressures on the insurance industry.

"In the face of these pressures, many insurers are restricting their activity to those business or consumer sectors that they see as their core markets - and all too often it is the voluntary and charity sectors that lose out.

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