Recently added articles from Insurance Brokers' Monthly:
THE NAME'S THE GAME
Feb 01, 2009; ... The pending demise of the Norwich Union name sees yet another long-lived brand bite the dust, shortly to leave no trace. Other than perhaps a stained glass window in Aldermanbury House alongside General Accident, Commercial Union et al. The urge for uniformity within global brands is a ...
Lenders give up sale of PPI
Feb 01, 2009; ... A number of lenders are to stop selling single premium payment protection insurance with unsecured personal loans in a move welcomed by the Financial Services Authority. Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, The Cooperative Bank, Lloyds Banking Group (including Lloyds TSB, Halifax, and Bank of ...
Electrical contractors scheme enhanced
Feb 01, 2009; ... Camberford Law has enhanced its scheme for electrical contractors insurance with options for defective workmanship, damage to property being worked upon, financial loss, efficacy, professional indemnity and legal expenses ....
BIBA welcomes move against uninsured drivers
Feb 01, 2009; ... BIBA welcomes the launch of a consultation by the Department for Transport into a new scheme of Continuous Insurance Enforcement (CIE) of statutory motor insurance. The new measures foresee the DVLA vehicle keeper database and the motor insurance database (MID) joining forces to systematically ...
APC national expansion continues
Feb 01, 2009; ... Commercial insurance underwriting agency APC has recruited a fourth broker development manager as part of its regional expansion across England into Northern Ireland and Wales. The appointment of Susan Blackley furthers this aim and APCs geographic reach - part of ambitious plans to double ...
Aon comes clean
Feb 01, 2009; ... Something rather unusual happened in January. A financial services firm heftily fined by the FSA made a public apology. And not only that, it did so with an appropriate degree of contriteness. The ongoing log of recent FSA offenders relative to the general insurance sector includes one ...
More to come?
Feb 01, 2009; ... James Bagge, legal consultant for international business law firm Norton Rose comments on the FSA's action towards Aon as related in the previous item. "This is a very interesting but perhaps, in the current climate, not an unexpected use of the FSA's powers of enforcement in the fight against ...
'Lady don't fall backwards'
Feb 01, 2009; ... Sounds like a murder mystery novel, doesn't it? It reminds that while on the subject of professional service TV ads there's one skit that always draws attention in our household - although thanks to the overkill I couldn't tell you who the advertiser is. It's the ...
A Cornish mutual
Feb 01, 2009; ... It's not often in this business that you come across an established insurer that you've never heard of before. That's no disrespect to South West-based insurance company Cornish Mutual whose media pack recently arrived in Stourbridge. Founded by a group of Westcountry farmers over 100 ...
Stomping at the Waldorf
Feb 01, 2009; ... The personal lines sector now attracts about ten billion quotes a year - about 2,000 different quotes for each actual sale. That rather startling fact was recently highlighted by Swinton chief executive Patrick Smith. "When you consider the number of aggregator quote requests customers are now ...
Cassidy Davis ups PPI claims investigations
Feb 01, 2009; ... Late last year specialist Lloyd's personal lines insurer Cassidy Davis outsourced its investigation services on payment protection insurance claims to a dedicated team at GAB Robins to support its Syndicate 5820 claims operation. This was the gist of an intriguing press release given ...
It's a bizarre world
Feb 01, 2009; ... Not for the first time the alien world of little green men and cover against bizarre happenings drifted across the insurance arena last month. Julie Carter of specialist insurance broker Adrian Flux used the "UFO strike - are you covered?" headline to draw attention to the scope of cover ...
Psst... will you take a bribe?
Feb 01, 2009; ... The question of bribery and corruption hit the headlines following the whopping £5m-plus fine levied on Aon as revealed on page 3 in this issue. And needless to say, the topic came up during a chat with senior partner Gavin Robertson of Robertson & Co, specialists in surveillance, ...
What's the joke?
Feb 01, 2009; ... A flippant thought conjured by the Aon name in the previous item reminds that when comedian Jimmy Carr (his website calls him a 'joke technician') did the honours at an insurance awards 'do' a few years back, the biggest laugh he got on the night - and he got many - was when he announced Aon as ...
Those TV ads
Feb 01, 2009; ... It's impossible to avoid the theme of this month's leading editorial on page 1 - the mega millions now being spent by the insurance industry on TV advertising. The Norwich Union/ Aviva all-star cast are not even trying to sell us insurance - their message is simply that the Norwich-based ...
Grub's up
Feb 01, 2009; ... Insurance magazines don't usually have a food column, which might be thought surprising given that one method of guaranteeing a captive authence is to invite any press bod to a fancy restaurant. A recent wheeze in the press conference world aimed at luring respectable numbers of journos ...
AFTER THE EVENT INSURANCE
Feb 01, 2009; ... Everything you wanted to know about ATE, but were too afraid to ask As Composite's John Mullin points out below, ATE had a difficult start. Not only that, but there's always been a mystique, indeed a degree of suspicion from the mainstream. Brokers' Monthly therefore asks him to take us ...
EXPLODING THE MYTH
Feb 01, 2009; ... "Is BIBA really interested in the smaller broker?", is one that still surfaces occasionally. Implicit in it is an accusation with which Simon Bolam, a member of BIBA' s Regulatory Working Party, fervently disagrees. Having owned Edinburgh-based E H Ranson & Co since 1971, and a ...
SME BUSINESS
Feb 01, 2009; ... SMEs - business threat or great opportunity? The threat of direct writers making a killing by commoditising small commercial business and selling solely on price is very real. After all, that's exactly what happened in personal lines. Groupama's Lynn Harris has a solution for the ...
THE OUTSOURCING REVOLUTION
Feb 01, 2009; ... Speaking as an outsourcer who also outsources, APC's Ian Russell contends that this function is the trigger for much of the current innovation taking place in the UK insurance market Insurance often has the reputation among the public - and even some who work in it - that it is a slow ...