The UK Insurance Blog

There is a new trend about to take off, according to a recent article “All under one roof”, for people to seriously consider opening up their homes to family members. But with all these people living under one roof, will we be losing out because we are forgetting to inform our insurance companies of the increased value of our collective belongings?

Twenty six per cent of people surveyed informed researchers they would go as far as to purchase a bigger sized home to be able to accommodate extended family members. Twenty seven per cent revealed they would consider purchasing a home in conjunction with in-laws or parents as they approach their twilight years.

Currently, sixty seven per cent of people living in the British Isles live with their family but in the future this is expected to change. While the larger proportion of people surveyed stated they would need a bigger property in order to take care of older relatives, thirty one percent saw the financial benefits of a decision such as this while eleven per cent claimed they would prefer sharing their roof with a number of family relatives.

The people at Halifax Home Insurance recognise this return of the trend where the generations live together is due primarily to our current social and economic situation. People actually want to live together again (as opposed to being more independent as was the trend in the not so distant past) and see the financial advantages of this. People’s attitudes towards multi-generational co-habitation can vary according to geography, it would seem. If you live in the south east, you are more likely to want to live with your older parents than those living in the west.

Regarding the matter of home contents insurance, where more people live under one roof, one would expect the number of valuable personal belongings to be greater. It is easy to end up with less cover than you need unless you take out an unlimited cover policy like that on offer at the Halifax. With research showing people are sometimes not clued in as to what the correct values are of family members’ belongings, more often than not, homes are underinsured, and this is a worry.

Should a family member move in with you, it will be beneficial to all concerned to inform your insurance provider alerting them to those extra items of higher value that you now need to cover.

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If you want to survive the credit crunch, Nick James, proprietor of an online UK entrepreneur support site insists if you follow his sensible tips you won’t go far wrong.

According to his article “Cutting costs in the credit crunch” the best thing you can do is to ensure your business insurance is in order. He insists, the last thing you should do is to place your business at risk in an attempt to save money, so before anything else, now is a good time to get your business insurance in order.

Think things over carefully before making decisions; never act on rash decisions.

Strengthen your position by concentrating on providing an excellent customer service and looking at ways to reduce marginal costs. He insists we should avoid being tempted by short term solutions for they can often lead to nightmare in the long term.

With everybody feeling the pressure of higher prices and wanting to hold on to their money, it is up to small businesses especially to ensure they are not ignored when invoices are due for paying. Attention needs to be paid to cash flow in particular and if customers are struggling to pay their bills at least agree when they can pay you and put in place a late payment surcharge. Lack of cash flow is one of the chief causes for 60% of businesses failing in its first three years of operation.

The millionaire business adviser rules out the necessity of taking out a short term loan secured on your house in order to survive the crunch. He insists this is a risky solution especially at the present time and should be avoided if at all possible. If you do need assistance to tide you over, it would be better to take a small loan on the business rather than turning to the good old credit card to bail you out.

Saving money wherever possible is essential throughout these demanding times. One easy way to save money is to look at your internet and phone line provision. These companies are highly competitive with one another and will do their best to beat any other deals you are currently getting.

The message overall is to focus on running an efficient operation in order to live through the credit crunch.

You don’t necessarily have to pay a fortune when purchasing holiday skiing insurance, according to the article “From adrenalin junkie to après-ski – cover remains crucial”. The point of the article is that just because you spend more, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will get a better deal. Read that small print religiously before sealing the deal! Although ski insurance doesn’t often come cheap, it is possible to save a pound or two when shopping around.

Following a survey at moneysupermarket.com, the conclusion arrived at was that winter sports holidaymakers need to check the small details because they are all saying different things. Insurance cover can vary from company to company regarding claim upper thresholds for damage or theft of property and have differing clauses regarding going off piste, closure due to avalanche as well as piste closure. With insurance companies having varying ideas concerning alcohol consumption, you could find that one glass of wine at lunchtime could nullify your protection.

When shopping for insurance, bear in mind the fact that few companies will provide cover for skiing off piste while many do not. Bear in mind also that those who do will normally expect you to pay higher premiums.

The head of research at Moneysupermarket agrees that effective comprehensive insurance cover doesn’t have to be costly. Inadequate insurance cover is a waste of money, so we need to take time looking for an insurance policy that covers every eventuality and make sure we get value for our money. He went on to reiterate that policy details and cover levels have to be fully comprehended before we sign on that dotted line. On the matter of après ski, the head of research at moneysupermarket.com emphasized the need to check our policies concerning possible accidents that happen after we’ve hit the slopes. To avoid invalidation of our claims, we need to be fully savvy with the contents of our policy agreements.

Internet crime can affect any one of us, according to a recent article in Professional Broking. The author, goes on to reveal the malware threat to Information Technology systems operated for brokers.

The article demonstrates how hackers are now joining together and forming organizations dedicated to breaking into systems anywhere they choose. Frightening how one such ‘company’, Asprox, (the product of a merging of capabilities) have turned hacking into a recognised criminal profession.

Anyone with an IT system in the UK is at risk of penetration thanks to the presence of malware. What appears to be an innocent email could be the beginning of the downfall of your system. This is how it works. After opening an email and clicking on a link, we end up in an infected website. At this point and in this realm, we are vulnerable to the hacker who then sets about controlling our computers on a remote basis. At this point, the hacker will set about stealing your information by uploading a program. Any information he successfully achieves (banking details, credit card information) is sold to whoever wants it.

It is not just the big businesses being targeted for this kind of criminal activity, they are interested in smaller systems to a greater extent mainly because they are easier to break in to. If you are a broker on an internet based system, you could be exposed and at risk. Accessed remotely, your site could be vulnerable to bots or automated computer operations by hackers. And just when you thought the misery couldn’t get any worse, beware all brokers with websites and own servers for the hacker will then be able to attack anybody who is unprotected that you deal with.

There are a number of ways to protect yourself and your company against this type of web crime but we must not overlook the necessity of insurance against computer viruses. In the event that your system is hacked, you are liable to civil liability fines to the extent that could ruin you and your business. If you do have insurance cover, read the small print to ensure it is not just limited to cover you against physical damage to your computer. Computer viruses leave no physical trace and it is this intangible damage that you should be protected against.

Check out Katherine Brandon’s article “Internet crime - Criminal evolution heads online” for ways to avoid hacking and to protect effectively against internet crime.

In the article “Insurance – how to get the best deal” people considering cancelling their insurance should think again! The article mentions there is a tendency to consider insurance a luxury when they should be seeing it as a necessity. Now that we are all feeling the pinch during these financially trying times, the last thing we should be thinking about is cancelling our insurance.

These are uncertain times, and now is the time to have a safety net in place and hang on to our insurance policies. And if we don’t have any, we ought to look at getting some! We need our jobs more than ever, so what happens if we fall sick or our house gets flooded. Keep the insurance going but look at ways to save money on your policy, is the message conveyed by the consumer expert Dominic Littlewood off the telly!
Dominic has never paid full asking price for his insurance! We need, he says, to pay attention to our policies and when they approach expiration, not to blindly sign the renewal. We ought to shop around for a better deal and he believes there is always a better deal to be had somewhere.

By shopping around for another insurance company, you could be saving as much as twenty per cent off your current cover. He suggest beginning with checking out an insurance comparison website, the easiest way to acquire quotes from a number of companies in one fell swoop. He offers other tips for getting cheaper insurance quotes as well but insists you should never lie about your circumstances to achieve reductions and discounts. With these top tips in mind, he brings our attention to his checklist of top tips on how to get cheaper insurance.

Ready? Fasten your seatbelts for Dominic Littlewood’s money saving masterclass!
Comparison sites to check out before you make your first move include the moneysupermarket website. Next, get ready to do some bartering! Using these website as a starting point, the next thing to do is to ring up the insurance companies and get them to improve on their quotes.

All you need to rehearse saying is the following “Your company has quoted a price on my car insurance online, but I’m unhappy with it. What is your best price?”
After giving you a quote, announce you will give them a ring tomorrow. Remember this top tip, you should never accept a quote immediately! And last but not least, take this best quote to another company and ask them to better it.

Try out these top tips from one of Britain’s much loved consumer experts and you ought to never look back again!

In the article “Home insurance could save the day this school holiday”  we are alerted to the fact our children’s school holidays could cost us a fortune.

Every time there is a school holiday, the house is at greater risk of a disaster occurring than any other time. Things get a bit wild, the kids lunge about and before you know it, your favourite Ming vase is a ‘gonna’!

The company ‘Sheila’s Wheels’ have looked into the subject and have discovered £0.5 billion worth of electrical item damage is caused by bored children in the UK during the school holidays. We should take heed of this and look seriously into our home contents insurance.

Twenty five per cent of children break or damage electrical equipment which adds up to £553 million paid out in the UK to replace these things or repair them. The average child will cause damage to the tune of £183. Over one in five mums and dads claimed on their home contents insurance because of the damage caused by their children. If you were wondering what articles get damaged the most, it would have to be digital cameras and laptops at the top of the lists.

The thing to do is to get adequate insurance for your possessions so you don’t have to come home to face a horrendous bill. Only a quarter of parents questioned said they would get their children to pay for the damage as a punishment so kids generally get off lightly it would seem!

In the event of damage during the school holidays, many parents are having to foot the bill themselves. Seventeen per cent of parents do not have any kind of insurance themselves preferring to foot the bill if and when disaster occurs.

Look out the schools have emptied out!. This is the main time when things get broken and someone has to face the music, according to the people at Sheila’s Wheels that is! If you have a family, the message is, don’t take any chances with your belongings. Store away your important valuables and create plenty of space for the children to play in.

We are all feeling the strains of the credit crunch at the moment and things could soon get worse. According to the article “Pet insurance: Protecting your pet in the credit crunch” the last thing we should think about doing is ceasing our pet insurance payments.

Average vet bills in the UK are currently recorded at just over £300. But sometimes complications happen and ongoing treatment is necessary which could run into thousands of pounds. As an example, a medical bill from fixing a dog’s broken leg following a road accident could add up to a crippling one and a half thousand pounds! The article states that upwards of fifty per cent of vets in the last five years have had to put pets to sleep just because expensive medical bills cannot be covered. This amounts to 1.6 million pet owners not being able to pay a vet bill and having to face the consequence of losing their pet forever. To avoid this happening to us, we are all encouraged to consider the positives of taking out pet insurance cover.

Throughout this credit crunch people are looking at ways to get the best value for their money and the RSPCA can offer a suggestion. They offer a policy through AXA where twenty per cent of your premium will go towards helping out the RSPCA’s charity commitment. What a good way to stretch your money that little bit further!

If considering taking out pet insurance, first of all understand very clearly what is stated in the small print. Be aware that some of the less expensive policies may only provide cover at a low value and for just a year. Ensure you take out life cover if you have a pedigree pet as they are, generally speaking, prone to illness and health complications. You will need in this case, a policy allowing freedom from time constraints.

Small monthly pet insurance payments are all that are required for financial peace of mind. One message that resonates clearly is that we don’t have to be a victim to unaffordable vets bills! We too can be financially prepared to save our pets thanks to foresight and a conversation with an insurance company.

There could be bad news in store for visitors to the Isle of Man should they need medical attention. According to the article “Health shock for Isle of Man residents”, there is to be a change to the healthcare reciprocal arrangement the island has with the UK. People from the UK visiting the Isle of Man will find they will personally be required to foot the bill for medical treatment as too will Isle of Man visitors to the UK.

The UK Government has recently stated they will end the reciprocal arrangement for healthcare and this will happen some time after 2010 although no definite date has been offered. The Manx government will then be responsible for its own funding from there on in.

Patients will be defined as a Manx patient or a UK one according to where their permanent home is situated and whereabouts their GP is situated. According to the article about 6,500 people are referred for treatment in the UK every year. This we are informed will continue with the Manx Government footing the bill as always to the tune of about six million pounds.

The bottom line is, that is you are from the UK mainland and you plan to visit the Isle of Man, you should ensure you are fully covered by your travel insurance, in case of emergencies. Similarly, if you are from the Isle of Man, you should do the same and take out adequate travel insurance in case the unthinkable happens while on holiday in the UK. If you or a loved one ends up being admitted into hospital for emergency treatment while on holiday and you have no insurance, the consequences could be devastating. Travel insurance - in this case, don’t leave home without it.

According to the article, we are yet to hear final proposals offering specifics, but students should not worry, as they will be unaffected as long as they are attending a course within the UK. It seems we have to watch this space for further points.

According to the article “£14,000 compo after dog caused bicycle crash”, people need to accept responsibility for the actions of their pets. It points out that you can never really tell what lies in wait for you around the corner and so the sensible thing to do is to take out some pet insurance.
Nothing could make more sense if you have a pet, especially after reading about the ex-RAF pilot, Ken MacLennan (65) from Malmesbury, who had to take six months off work to recover from an accident involving somebody else’s pet dog.
The ex-pilot had suffered a broken pelvis after a dog off the lead collided with his bicycle in the Badminton Estate (May 2006). After taking the owner to court, MacLennan won damages to the tune of £14,000 in compensation. Luckily, the owner (who has not been named) had the aforethought to take out pet insurance and was able to claim on that to cover the costs.
Owners are completely responsible for the actions of their pets and should make sure they have insurance just in case the unthinkable happens. Owners of dogs should ensure their animals are trained not to chase cyclists and to run wild off the lead or otherwise keep them on their leads.

Everyone remembers those terrible floods of 2007. Hull was hit severely by high water levels and the devastation was at its most terrible. In his article “Hundreds of Hull residents still suffering from last year’s floods”  Paul Mitchell discusses the dreadful aftermath.

During 2007, Britain experienced rainfall levels it had never seen before. Thirteen people lost their lives and over fifty five thousand homes and businesses were severely flooded. Last summer was thought of as the biggest emergency in peacetime for the last 60 years. Five hundred thousand people lost their electricity supply and water while 8 motorways and many railway lines had to be closed. Britain had come to a standstill particularly up in Hull where 95% of properties are a flood risk. The total value of home insurance claims submitted was over £3 billion. In Hull over seven thousand homes were ravaged by floodwater causing the drains and the sewers to overflow. Most of these people experienced problems with the processing of their insurance claims.

Although the floods happened a year ago, it may come as a surprise to find that many of the people affected by the devastation are still living out of accommodation that is temporary. Such accommodation is a cramped caravan parked up on the drive.

The article met with local residents who voiced some opinions of their experiences. A local couple, Liam and Jo who have lived in their home for five years, described how the flood water poured into the house through the floorboards. The water level reached three to four feet above floor level. For six months afterwards they were living with their in-laws before their downstairs was put right. As a consequence to claiming for all the flooding damage, the couple are now paying higher insurance premiums. How can this be right?

Since the flooding, the couple reported a downturn in community communication. There was a single meeting arranged for after the floods and surprisingly, no action carried out. The community was consequently in uproar over this travesty.

A local builder called Phil, a resident of the area for over ten years has noticed a decline in the social side of the community. There is an overwhelming feeling of displacement about the area as a number of people, he claimed, have moved away. Phil stuck around and moved to the upstairs floor of his house while carrying out his repairs which he paid for himself. He helped to pump the water out of his neighbours gardens for four days barely resting during that time. What does Phil say about the local council? He blames them for the neglect of the infrastructure of the drains and reports they haven’t been touched for 10 years. It’s about time they did something.

A number of people are still living out of their temporary homes, many of which are caravans parked outside their houses. There are reports that people are still having problems with insurance claims twelve months after the floods. While the floors were certified dry (a month following the flooding) they were beginning to get wet again. All became glaringly obvious, this was not a problem that was going to go away!
Following an official review of last year’s floods, Sir Michael Pitt issued an apology but attempted to shift the majority of the responsibility onto the householder and not the local councils, water authorities and insurance companies. Shocking all who listened to his comments, he stressed that the victims of the floods should not expect the government to help them out.

An independent inquiry found that Yorkshire Water was greatly to blame for the extent of the damages caused by the floods. Additionally, it found evidence that requests for maintenance were ignored and that a new sewer system was grossly ineffective.

Following the Pitt review, the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn advised of an action plan set to take place in the Autumn. That £5 million would be set aside for risk assessments as well as a budget of a quarter of a million pounds to be spent to a flood drill. Many feel it will take considerably more funds to turn back the clocks on the current weakened and ineffective flood defence effort.