Regulation demanded for “diabolical” back book selling
Posted on January 25th, 2012
Advisers and providers have also been warned that the industry must modernise and address consumers correctly to flourish in the current market.
Making a keynote speech at COVER’s, Mortgage Solutions sister title, Health and Protection Forum, Clive Waller, managing director of CWC Research, criticised the current way closed provider books are dealt with and called for regulators to act.
“The selling of books quite frankly is diabolical,” he said.
“If you want to look at what happened when a lot of people sold off mortgage books, it’s not a pretty story.
“I am not suggesting selling protection books is as bad, but if you sell on brand and then you sell the book there’s something very wrong there and we need far tighter regulation on books being sold.
“Takeovers are unavoidable but, even then, if a company buys a book through that they should be held responsible for maintaining those claims properly,” he added.
In a controversial speech that sought to raise the industry’s attention to some of its persistent problems, Waller, who is also co-founder of the Income Protection Task Force, highlighted concerns that IFAs do not address their customer’s primary need when recommending policies.
“IFAs do not regard claims payment as a selection criteria,” he said.
10 Insurance Scams Homeowners Frequently Try to Pull
Posted on January 14th, 2012
Many homeowners fudge values a bit or make less-than-honest estimates when filing a claim with their homeowners insurance carrier with the attitude that theyre only taking back money that theyve already paid. This attitude is not only criminal, but also costs the community money in raised premiums across the board. Here are some of the most commonly filed bogus homeowners insurance claims.
The Insurance Information Institute estimates that fraudulent claims on homeowners policies cost insurers up to $30 billion per year.
Does Your Disability Income Insurance Fall Short?
Posted on January 13th, 2012
Because of the limits put on the benefit available under traditional disability income insurance, there are a lot of people who would fall well short of being able to maintain their lifestyle if disabled.
The standard of the industry is 60% of your salary, usually with a maximum of $16,600 a month which is 60% of $200,000. There is no benefit for bonuses, so if your salary was $200,000 and you got a bonus each year that ranged from $50,000 to $150,000, your disability income benefit would be capped at $16,600. If you made $100,000 and made a minimum $100,000 bonus every year, your maximum disability benefit would be based on $100,000, $8300 per month.
I know the 99% really dont care about this, but even those of us who arent in the top 1% income wise are capped in the same ways.
Tags: Disability Income, Disability Income Insurance, Income Insurance, Short
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Keystone Insurers to expand into Georgia
Posted on January 6th, 2012
Keystone Insurers has agreed to expand its business into Georgia, US with around 15 ‘pioneer’ partners, during the second quarter of 2012.
Keystone vice president of sales and marketing Elizabeth Schenk said that the group has been designed to enhance the value of an independent agency providing mutual benefits to individual partners and the larger group.Each independent agency within Keystone gains from an enhanced array of services and support by being part of the larger group.
Fife karting firm faces £1m public liability case following accident
Posted on January 2nd, 2012
A leisure firm based in the Scottish county of Fife is reportedly facing a public liability case which could result in a damages payment of £1 million, after a teacher suffered an accident at one of its karting tracks.
Driveflight, a company based in Glenrothes but which has karting tacks in a number of different locations, is being sued by a woman over an incident at its Aberdeen Kartstart circuit.
Craft and design teacher Julie Markie claims she was checking on a pupil at the side of the karting track when another pupil drove into the pit area at speed, entering through an open gate.
Tags: Accident, Liability Case, Public Liability, Public Liability Case
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Paper Licences Won’t be Needed to Hire a Car from 2015
Posted on December 30th, 2011
Remembering to dig out your paper driving licence for the car rental company has always been a particular bug bear of mine. Apparently it’s because the paper licence has details of any road traffic offences.
But, hallelujah from 2015 this will no longer be the case and you should be able to rock up to the rental car desk (assuming they have the correct systems in place to access the DVLA database!) without handing over a tome of paperwork.
However, as with all these things, nothing is absolutely straight forward, so because this won’t be foolproof, our recommendation, as always, is to check your booking information and make sure that you have all the bits of paperwork and identification that you require for collection, as turning up with one item missing could mean that you are not permitted to take the car.
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Tags: Car, Car 2015
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Christmas Light Safety Videos
Posted on December 13th, 2011
If you’re celebrating Christmas in your home this year, make sure you decorate safely. Many home fires are started every year because unsafe methods or lights were used, or because lights were left on and unattended in the home. As you home insurance agent, we never want to see you have to go through the devastation caused by a house fire – particularly around the holidays.
Tags: Light, Light Safety
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