Caribbean Yacht Insurance Warning
With the hurricane season in full sail and the damage to the US gulf states and the Caribbean from hurricanes Ike and Gustav
already running into billions of dollars,
Yachtline Insurance of London, one of
the major providers of cover for yachts throughout Caribbean region and marine underwriters at LLoyds of London, are warning
that in some places, many yacht owners are finding that they are not covered having not complied with the minimum
requirements for their policy or taken out the additional hurricane windstorm cover.
"We have insurance loss adjustors working round the clock, particularly on the Islands of Grenada, Jamaica and Cuba which
took some of the worst damage from Ike and Gustav. In many places we have found damage to vessels that could have been
avoided if the proper hurricane risk management had taken place"
Yachtline are pointing out that no matter who insures you, you should observe the requirements for hurricane yacht and boat
insurance which are contained within your policy.
The
Caribbean Yacht Insurance cover hurricane
affected area is defined as north of 9 degrees North and south of 35 degrees North, west of 55 degrees West and east of 100
degrees West. For cover purposes this encompasses the region west from the Venezuela coast and Trinidad in the South to Cape
Hatteras in the north.
The Hurricane season runs from June 1st to November 30th and all laying up conditions and procedures must be observed during
this period for the yacht insurance to remain valid.
Monohull boats should be protected in a purpose built cradle made of prefabricated steel. Heavy duty webbing should be
applied to the cradle to anchor it down at at least four anchor points.
All catamarans should be securely laid up ashore and anchored as above.
Mast removal and storage on racks attracts cheaper yacht insurance premiums and should be observed if declared. However masts
removed and properly attached to the hull is usually sufficient.
All sails should be stored preferably, and all loose articles properly lashed down.
If boat owners take the simple precautions as laid out in their policy then the number of claims and losses disallowed will
reduce.
Caravan Insurer announces sponsoship deal
Online caravan and park home insurance comparison site
CaravanInsurance.org have announced a joint venture with Exeter City FC Football in the community team in PR and marketing
A spokesman for the website said 'Many of our customers are based in rural areas such as Devon and Cornwall. When we were approached by the Football in the Community team to help Exeter City were were only too willing. We expect to help other Football club community projects up and down the Country in the future."
You can find the Exeter City FITC website at
http://www.exetercityfitc.co.uk Labels: caravan insurance, football
FSA fines Alliance and Leicester £7m for misselling Loan Protection
Alliance & Leicester has been hit with a record fine by the FSA of £7 million for serious failings in its telephone sales of Loan Payment Protection Insurance.
For three years from January 2005 to December 2007 A&L sold over 200000 Loan PPI policies to customers seeking a personal loan.
The FSA has said that there was a general failure by A&L advisers to give customers details of the true cost of their PPI. In addition A&L sought to find reasons to sell PPI without properly considering what customers needed.
A&L did not make it sufficiently clear that
Loan Payment Protection Insurance was optional and it trained its staff to pressurize customers where they queried the inclusion of PPI in their quotation or challenged independent financial advisers recommendations.
These failings resulted in unacceptable levels of non-compliant sales and a high risk of unsuitable sales over the three year period.
The FSA Director of Enforcement, said: “The failings at A&L are the most serious we have found. This is reflected in the record PPI fine. It is very disappointing that after three years of regulation we are still finding serious problems in PPI sales.
Firms cannot rely on paperwork sent out later as an excuse for unclear or misleading statements given on the telephone.”
Simon Burgess of British Insurance, one of the country's leading independent suppliers of PPI who has been campaigning against misselling for years said
"Although rather belated, we welcome the FSA's tough stance against anyone who mis-sells PPI."
Labels: Alliance and Leicester, fsa, loan payment protection insurance
Dead Cat Bounce
After yesterday's 21 year 7.8% panic-induced record crash, the FTSE 100 rebounded as expected this morning. This was despite the warning from the British Chambers of Commerce that Britain is already in recession and is facing a long downturn.
Uk government moves to protect bank deposits
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has increased the compensation limit for bank deposits from £35,000 up to a total of £50,000 for each customer's claim.
This increase applies from midnight Monday 6th October 2008.
Customers with joint accounts will be eligible to claim up to £100,000.
Whether this will be enough to stop funds flowing overseas remains to be seen.
Both Ireland and Greece have unilaterally declared to protect all depositers funds.
This move has caused great uncertainty within EU markets and at the weekend German Chanceller Angela Merck suggestede that German banks may take the same action.
We await further moves from Gordon Brown and Mr A Darling.
The situation could be worsened further this week as the Bank of England are erxpected to cut Interest Rates by up to 1% to deal with the ongoing banking and insurance credit crunch crisis.
Labels: Bank of England, Banks, credit crunch
Check your Solicitor has Insurance before you employ them
Online
Professional Indemnity Insurance Insurer Indemnia warned today that litigants seeking advice on any matter but in particular housing conveyancing, should check that their Solicitor has adequate Professional Indemnity Cover.
Many Law firms faced a frantic rush last week to try to obtain PI cover renewals before the deadline on October 1st.
A spokeperson said, " We don't know at this point in time just how many law firms are out out there without the necessary cover in place and we advise all potential customers to seek confirmation of cover before employing solicitors."
Over the last six month's many large UK insurance companies have withdrawn from the professional Indemnity UK market or made their rates so unattatractive as to discourage renewals. Norwich Union has stopped insuring law firms of less than ten partners in an effort to remove the 'cowboy solicitors' from their books.
Accelerating this crisis is the credit crunch, that has seen a massive increase in the number of claims against solicitors for negligence particularly in the conveyancing area and civil claims.
"The reason for the increased number of claims is partly due to a savvy public who are quite rightly realising that the can claim under the legal expenses section of their household insurance policies for poor advice and negligent work carried out by cowboy solicitors who in some cases should not be trading", confirmed Indemnia.
With capacity in the market for PI at its lowest ever, possibly hundreds of
solicitors who did not obtain cover last week will by law have to enter the the Industry's assigned risks pool.
Labels: PI, Professional Indemnity Insurance, Solicitors
Small Insurance Brokers at Risk as Banks fail
Small Insurance Brokers such as you might still find on your local high street are under further threat as the banks and building societies collapse the
Institute of Insurance Brokers has warned.
The
Association of British Insurers is reported to be furious with the way that the nationalisation of the Bradford & Bingley debt has been handled which has left UK Insurance Companies having to foot the bill of £14 billion to cover any losses under the FSA controlled Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
If the FSCS has to pay out more than 1.84 billion per year then
insurance brokers and intermediaries will be asked to contribute more to the fund, to which they already pay a substantial amount each year in order to trade. This could well lead to more small insurance businesses going under - especially as we have not yet seen the last of the big fallers in the Global finance world.
This weekend the Belgium Government was trying to sort out another rescue package for troubled insurance company Fortis who have already received an 11.2 billion input from the Benelux governments. Fortis incidently had a large affinity scheme with Bradford and Bingley. Two other companies heavily involved with B&B were Zurich and Norwich Union.
Labels: Fortis, fsa, FSCS, Insurance Brokers
