Insurance Premium Hike.

But do these rules apply to the brokers?

Which rules in particular?

We, as Lloyd's brokers, have to separate client money (premium paid and claims we collect) from our own money. We are also highly regulated, not least by the FCA and / or a host of by-laws and then all sorts of consumer legislation, not forgetting the old favourites of contract law and that of agency.

Feck knows how the chimps in the 'brokers' (I use the term in its widest sense) are regulated but it must be by the FCA, to start with. They certainly need a good kick up the arse. There again, so do many of their customers.
 
Is it biba then ?

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That's an association to do with insurance brokers; they have rules for sure but are arguably pretty toothless. The regulator is the FCA, along with lots of laws etc etc, all of which do have teeth. But, understandably, the FCA regulates different facets of the financial services industry differently, one from another.

It's sometimes a pretty tortuous chain of ownership and / or tricky to work out quite what goes on. For example, let's start with the Bike Insurer, who advertise their services on these pages.

The Bike Insurer is not an insurance company; nor are they an insurance broker. They are a comparison website or search engine, who might as well be comparing the price of baked beans or bog roll. Here's how they describe themselves:

The Bike Insurer is the UK’s biggest motorbike insurance comparison site.
We compare the prices from 40 motorbike insurance brokers and give you the best and cheapest prices for your insurance in the UK – and if you find a cheaper online quote anywhere else, we guarantee to beat it.

And then goes on to tell us:

The Bike Insurer is a trading name of ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited who are an appointed representative of Vast Visibility Limited who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 566973

ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited are a lot more quiet about what they are. But we do know that they are in the Channel Islands. Why might you guess that might be? They are not an insurance company either, nor are they an insurance broker.

https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_firmdetailsPage?id=001b000000NMW9YAAX

Here's who / what Vast Visibility are:

https://www.vastvisibility.co.uk

And this is what they do:

https://www.vastvisibility.co.uk/our-services/

It's full of the latest buzz word jargon, most of which have about as much to do with insurance broking (or insurance, come to that) as the Pope has to do with cabbage farming. They are not an insurance company, nor are they an insurance broker. They provide the technology and computing wizardry widgets to lots of other search engine bods. There's a bit of a theme emerging here, is there not?

So, the Bike Insurer is in Liverpool (as is Vast Visibility) but ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited are in Jersey, which has all sorts of advantages. In short, it's a hotchpotch of stuff, all driven by computers who - when it comes to actually facing the public in the form of Big Bob Bikermate from Biggleswade - are staffed by call-center chimps. So, next time you or anyone else blames an insurance company (or even an insurance broker) for all your trials and tribulations, you'll know that you are moaning about the wrong people.

To be frank it's a mess. Why, is it so? That's easy to answer:

All because Joe Public demanded that the price of all this shite was driven to point zero and made easier. Price is the ultimate driver in it all, so the people (who used to provide a half decent service) got stripped out of the process, replaced by computers. The same Joe Public then moans like buggery that he gets fuck all service, is talked to by a chimp (even if Joe Public is sometimes not too far up the evolutionary scale himself) and bellyaches when his feck all less 10 premium goes up by 50P or £50. Be careful what you wish for, you sometimes get it.
 
That's an association to do with insurance brokers; they have rules for sure but are arguably pretty toothless. The regulator is the FCA, along with lots of laws etc etc, all of which do have teeth.

It's sometimes a pretty tortuous chain of ownership and / or tricky to work out quite what goes on. For example, let's start with the Bike Insurer, who advertise their services on these pages.

The Bike Insurer is not an insurance company and arguably they are not a broker either or not one in the conventional sense. They are if you like a comparison website or search engine, who might as well be comparing the price of baked beans or bog roll. Here's how they describe themselves:



And then goes on to tell us:



ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited are a lot more quiet about what they are. But we do know that they are in the Channel Islands. Why might you guess that might be? They are not an insurance company either, nor are they a conventional insurance broker.

https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_firmdetailsPage?id=001b000000NMW9YAAX

Here's who / what Vast Visibility are:

https://www.vastvisibility.co.uk

They are not an insurance company, nor are they a conventional insurance broker. There's a bit of a them emerging here, is there not.

So, the Bike Insurer is in Liverpool (as is Vast Visibility) but ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited are in Jersey, which has all sorts of advantages. In short, it's a hotchpotch of stuff, all driven by computers and - when it comes to actually facing the public in the form of Big Bob Bikermate from Biggleswade - probably staffed by chimps.
So insurers and brokers are covered by same regulator and rules ?

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So insurers and brokers are covered by same regulator and rules ?

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The same ultimate regulator, the FCA but the form and extent of their regulation - and indeed the laws governing each - differs. Insurers take risk; they insure things, sometimes for multiple millions of pounds and sometimes never talk to Joe Bloggs public at all. Brokers take no risk, as they are not insurance companies; they are intermediaries, sometimes not talking to the public either. So they all require different and separate regulation obviously, in the same way that a bank needs different regulation from say a stock broker or from an insurance company. You'd want your doctor to be regulated separately from your holiday provider, wouldn't you? Insurance quote search engine providers - as in the example in post 29 - are neither an insurer or a broker, so their regulation will be different again.
 
That's an association to do with insurance brokers; they have rules for sure but are arguably pretty toothless. The regulator is the FCA, along with lots of laws etc etc, all of which do have teeth. But, understandably, the FCA regulates different facets of the financial services industry differently, one from another.

It's sometimes a pretty tortuous chain of ownership and / or tricky to work out quite what goes on. For example, let's start with the Bike Insurer, who advertise their services on these pages.

The Bike Insurer is not an insurance company; nor are they an insurance broker. They are a comparison website or search engine, who might as well be comparing the price of baked beans or bog roll. Here's how they describe themselves:



And then goes on to tell us:



ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited are a lot more quiet about what they are. But we do know that they are in the Channel Islands. Why might you guess that might be? They are not an insurance company either, nor are they an insurance broker.

https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_firmdetailsPage?id=001b000000NMW9YAAX

Here's who / what Vast Visibility are:

https://www.vastvisibility.co.uk

And this is what they do:

https://www.vastvisibility.co.uk/our-services/

It's full of the latest buzz word jargon, most of which have about as much to do with insurance broking (or insurance, come to that) as the Pope has to do with cabbage farming. They are not an insurance company, nor are they an insurance broker. They provide the technology and computing wizardry widgets to lots of other search engine bods. There's a bit of a theme emerging here, is there not?

So, the Bike Insurer is in Liverpool (as is Vast Visibility) but ICE Internet Comparison Experts Limited are in Jersey, which has all sorts of advantages. In short, it's a hotchpotch of stuff, all driven by computers who - when it comes to actually facing the public in the form of Big Bob Bikermate from Biggleswade - are staffed by call-center chimps. So, next time you or anyone else blames an insurance company (or even an insurance broker) for all your trials and tribulations, you'll know that you are moaning about the wrong people.

To be frank it's a mess. Why, is it so? That's easy to answer:

All because Joe Public demanded that the price of all this shite was driven to point zero and made easier. Price is the ultimate driver in it all, so the people (who used to provide a half decent service) got stripped out of the process, replaced by computers. The same Joe Public then moans like buggery that he gets fuck all service, is talked to by a chimp (even if Joe Public is sometimes not too far up the evolutionary scale himself) and bellyaches when his feck all less 10 premium goes up by 50P or £50. Be careful what you wish for, you sometimes get it.
Only one thing worse than not getting what you want, and that's actually getting what you wanted.

Quality service costs, and until you need to claim you don't know how good they'll be.

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Quality service costs, and until you need to claim you don't know how good they'll be.

Who is the 'they' in that sentence?

The insurer?

The broker?

The search engine provider?

The loss adjuster?

The repair shop?

As to the cost? Well, you decide just how much you want to pay.
 
Mainly the insurer, you are correct though. There's lots of layers to process through, and "the insurance company" gets the blame if it goes wrong, which is more a generic statement than anything else.

However, ultimately they're the one with the mutually binding contract, with the client, so are accountable.

Personally now a days, if there's anything more than a minor or trivial problem, I just get the lawyer's to deal with it for me.

Who is the 'they' in that sentence?

The insurer?

The broker?

The search engine provider?

The loss adjuster?

The repair shop?

As to the cost? Well, you decide just how much you want to pay.

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Complicated innit? However getting bike insurance this year is proving more expensive and more difficult than ever.
Wait until you get old !

And to think how the white heat of technology was going to improve all our lives.

No personal nuclear powered jet packs yet either.

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Complicated innit? However getting bike insurance this year is proving more expensive and more difficult than ever.

Yup, the cost is - for some bods at least - going up and for some parts of the country proving very difficult to obtain at all. The loss ratios are shite because bods write their now very expensive motorcycles off and / or get them nicked, sometimes because they cannot be arsed to arm themselves with even a modicum of basic theft prevention.

The trouble comes that Mr Joe Public sees insurance, not as a contract of indemnity but as an investment which, unless he receives back the premium he spends each year (and more) he's been ripped off for. Mix in that it's compulsory to have it and that most people don't understand what it is they have bought, who sold it to them, who the various players in the game are and that the call centre chimps are, well, just chimps, it creates a mess. The good news is, the vast majority of claims are settled promptly and often for much more than the injured party ever expected or was really due..... all sometimes for peanuts.
 
Making a loss is not the same as trading while insolvent (which is illegal in any business)
When you portray publicly that your paying out more than you're getting in premiums and suggest or hint very heavily that if you don't increase the premiums, you'll go bust as it can't continue what should that be called ?

It's opiate for politician's too stupid or personally involved to see past the lies and deceit.

If, the insurance companies are operating at a loss then those massive pay increases/bonuses to senior management and the dividend increases to shareholders are wholly inappropriate.

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Insurers can release premium (cash) reserves from past years in order to close gaps in their loss ratios. Obviously, they can’t do that forever.

They can also buy their own insurance (called, reinsurance, which is what I pretend to do all day) that can protect them from an as yet unknown future further deterioration in their loss results over say a several year spread.

They can also raise fresh capital or adjust the premiums from other lines of business to subsidise their Motor portfolio.

Or they can simply stop insuring certain lines of business or charge more for it. Or, as sometimes happens, they can go bust.

Insurer solvency ratios / profit and loss accounts and balance sheets are to some degree or another complex; made more so now by onerous Solvency II requirements.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvency_II_Directive_2009
 


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