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Zurich appoints a new chief financial officer

admin — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:29:08 +0000

Neil Freshwater is the new chief financial officer for the Zurich UK general insurance business.

Freshwater comes from the Catlin Group and joins Zurich on 1 May 2013. He brings with him 20 years of experience gained at Laurentian Life, Aviva and Swiss Re and worked in the general insurance, life and reinsurance sectors.

Mr Freshwater will be reporting to Steve Lewis – the Zurich UK GI chief executive.

Lewis said: “I’m confident his skills in delivering business strategy will be of huge value to our finance function and our executive team. That Neil is so well acquainted with the general insurance market is an added bonus – and I’m looking forward to having him on-board.”

£97,000 donated to Railway Children by Aviva

admin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:58:16 +0000

Aviva has been using Twitter to raise money for charity. They have donated £97,774 to the charity Railway Children that supports homeless children, after the large number of fans who tweeted their support for the charity.

Norwich City FC wore the Railway Children logo on their shirts during their Barclays Premier League match against Everton. This helped to bring attention to the fact that a child runs away from home every five minutes.

Aviva donated £1 to Railway Children for every tweet or retweet on match day. The sum of £97,774 means that 97,774 fans tweeted or retweeted on match day, Saturday 23rd February.

Railway Children provides support and help to children aged under 16 who have run away from home or are at risk of doing so.

Government urges Life Insurers to make their products “simpler”

admin — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 07:32:49 +0000

The government believes that Life Insurance companies ought to make their products easier to understand to encourage more people to protect themselves and their families.

Carol Sergeant, a former chief risk officer at Lloyds Banking Group, led a committee that was asked to look at how policies need to be simplified so that they could be more easily understood by consumers.
The products will be reviewed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and qualifying ones will be awarded a BS Kitemark showing they meet the new standards on simplicity.

A fixed-term life insurance product will be one of the first ones to be implemented, followed by a whole-of-life insurance policy.

Each product will have the same key terms and conditions so that they will be easier compare and understand.

Sergeant said: “We have known for a long time that being able to manage your finances effectively leads to increased well-being and a better quality of life, at every given level of income.
“I hope the simple financial products initiative will make it easier for people to understand and compare the key financial products they need and make good choices with confidence.”

Consumer pressure group Which? has welcomed the proposals.

£118 added to your car insurance bill by whiplash claims

admin — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:02:34 +0000

Aviva, British biggest insurer, claimed that fraudulent whiplash claims are affecting the cost of everyone’s car insurance.

These whiplash claims have jumped up dramatically to 550,000 per annum, which is costing insurance companies £3bn. Aviva reckons that a lot of this cost – each whiplash claim costs on average £2,500 – is wasted on payments to claims management companies and legal fees. Aviva is proposing a solution to the “compensation culture”. If it goes ahead, this could reduce car insurance premiums by about £60 a year; car insurance premiums have increased by 80% since October 2008.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) believes that up to 25% of all whiplash claims may be claimed for fraudulently. “For too long, it has been seen as the ‘fraud of choice’. Our roads are safer, yet every day over 1,500 claims are made. More effective diagnosis of whiplash will help genuine claimants get paid out quickly and reduce the scope for fraud, so helping to ensure that honest motorists do not end up footing the bill for the cheats through higher insurance premiums.”

As part of its research of nearly 400 drivers in the UK, Aviva found that only one third of personal injury claimants actually spent their compensation money on physiotherapy or other medical treatment. Some used the cash to go on holiday (9%), buy luxury items (12%), or even to pay off debts.

£6.7m a day paid out by UK insurers on life and protection policies

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:53:57 +0000

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) said that insurance companies paid out £6.7 million pounds every day on life, income protection and critical illness policies in 2011.

97% of life insurance claims were paid out to claimants, with the average sum paid out being £46,000. This is around 2.5 times the average annual salary.

In 2011, the average income protection claim paid out for five years and the average sum paid our for this type of policy was £14,000 per annum.

For critical illness policies, 92% of claims were validated; the average pay-out was £59,000.

PPI claims now the largest mis-selling scandal, according to Which

admin — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:50:21 +0000

Compensation claims against banks and other financial institutions for the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance, or PPI, have become, by the amount of compensation paid out and set aside, the most costly issue for the UK financial sector.

With Lloyds TSB now setting aside over £5 billion towards claims and the total spend exceeding £12 billion, the scandal has eclipsed the private pension and mortgage endowment mis-selling controversies, and shows no sign of fading or slowing any time soon.

Former bosses who oversaw the periods where PPI was mis-sold have had some bonuses reclaimed, however the scale of the mis-selling was such that it alone made personal loans profitable for some banks.

Aviva ‘may sell its US insurance business’

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:23:48 +0000

Aviva, one of the UK’s leading insurers, has received purchase offers from various US investment firms for its US insurance division, all of which exceed $1 billion (£620 million).

The prospective purchasers, including Guggenheim Partners, have been buying up undesired insurance divisions in order to access funds to grow their investment operations on a more stable footing.

Aviva is in the process of seeking a departure from unprofitable markets, in order that it may increase its cash reserves during tough times.

Ceremonial costs of death on the up

admin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:10:21 +0000

A review of the cost of a funeral, carried out by Sun Life Direct, has concluded that funeral costs are skyrocketing much faster than the rate of inflation, with the last year-on-year increase being over 6%, coupled with a rise of over 70% in just 8 years.

Despite heavy advertising and promotion of funeral plans, the review also looked into the prevalence of funeral plans or other arrangements in place to pay for funerals, and found that 27% of those surveyed had no such protection. The research was said to reinforce the fact that having plans in place was key, given the high cost of funerals.

Overall, however, the total cost of managing the affairs of the deceased, including burial or cremation, had fallen due to the falling costs of legal fees.

Majority of people “have no life cover”

admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:55:25 +0000

A survey carried out by Beagle Street, a recent entrant to the life insurance market, has revealed a worrying statistic about life cover provision in the UK – more than 50% of people in the UK have no life cover.

Respondents blamed various constraints within their lives for the lack of life insurance, with the majority of those with no life cover stating that cost was the greatest obstacle to obtaining life cover. Others had never even thought about buying life cover, putting such considerations to the back of their mind.

The survey makes for worrying reading for those without any provision, given that should the worst happen to any of these households it would leave the survivors with all the debts and a severely reduced income from which to pay them.

Middle age “between 55 and 70”, according to surveyed Britons

admin — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:32:19 +0000

A survey, carried out by Love to Learn, asked a number of people what age they believed middle age and old age started, with the average result being 54 years and 347 days for the start of middle age, and 69 years and 277 days.

This marks a change in attitudes from previous generations, who would have considered themselves old by the time they got to age 60. Over-55s now far more willing to learn a new skill or hobby normally associated with younger people, including computer skills and energetic outdoor activities such as windsailing and mountain biking. Many people who responded now see retirement as an opportunity to do what they never could when in their 20s due to work and family commitments taking over.

The attitude change and increasing desire for a more active lifestyle post retirement may contribute to an increase in average life expectancy.