Thursday 22 May 2014

One of the jml Insurance sites is currently down.

We have just received an email from the web company we use saying "Just to let you know there is a BT line fault that has disconnected the internet to our servers, resulting in various web and email services being offline.

The fault occurred around 14:00 today and BT engineers are investigating.


We would hope to have service resumed sometime tomorrow morning" 


Please note this is for jml-insurance.co.uk and jmlvillas.com however
www.jml-property-insurance.co.uk
www.insurance4carrental.com and   
www.irishpropertyinsurance.com are all functioning as normal although some of the onward links to jml-insurance.co.uk will not be working.

Trust the issue is resolved very quickly. 

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Criminal Convictions and the effect on Insurance

Being involved in the Insurance Industry for almost 30 years I have seen that the way ex offenders are treated has changed in the last few years. For the good in some cases, but in certain cases obtaining insurance can be impossible. Hopefully,  someone will change this in the near future.

Major problems faced by ex offenders with convictions for Fraud are obtaining any form of insurance whilst the conviction is unspent. There is maybe one insurer that will insure a car whilst business insurance and public liability, and home insurance are becoming impossible to place.

Fire arms, Arson and Sexual offences are now more frequent and the ex offenders have no chance now in obtaining any form of cover without having either a having  huge portfolio of properties or spending £5000+ in going to Lloyd's of London. Most companies use the excuse that the reinsurances will not allow them to do this. The fact that some insurers that have links to the red telephone are owned by the tax payer has no bearing.

Issues speaking to clients I have found are:

  • Internet based quote engines don't ask about criminal convictions before people start inputting the information. Therefore, the person assumes if they don't read all the material facts pages that they have cover if they hit the button. 
  • Insurers that deal online only will not normally offer terms to any ex offenders! (Car insurance Convictions are not criminal in most cases)
  • Internet based insurers should disclose prior to starting a quote if they don't insure anyone with criminal convictions.   
For the good there has been progress made in the form of the new rehabilitation of offenders act, where minor sentences have a shorter period of time before they are spent and the offender now has a chance to live a normal live after paying their dues.

Home Insurance - if you have committed a criminal offence you must inform your current insurer whatsoever, the offence is. A very few companies will allow the cover to go to renewal and then ask you to obtain new insurance. This is not a refusal to insure if the offence happened during the term of the policy, however if you did not disclose that you had a conviction pending the insurers are within their rights to cancel the policy from inception.

Please note that any mortgage on a property whether it is a private house or commercial property is subject to the property being insured. If the mortgage company find it is uninsured they may repossess the property.

Source Dave Burn of T R Youngs / Allstyles Insurance

To contact Dave Burn for your insurance requirements please follow this link here

Driving Other Cars or Vehicles Third Party Only Insurance Cover.

Driving without insurance the current system only fines the offenders a ridiculously small amount of money, I for one would like to see the offenders charged twice the cost of the lowest insurance quotation and community service orders. Main offenders are young drivers who assume its cheaper to take the chance than drive with it.

We need a system in place where ownership of a car can not change hands unless proof of insurance has been obtained. The Third Party driving other cars clause on all policies needs to be scrapped all together or made compulsory for all Car insurers. As currently some insurers with give it to Under 25s and other will not. If you have a occupation in the Motor trade field then the policy generals excludes driving other cars.

Plus the industry needs to have one common wording which is not up for discussion and can not be altered by the insurer.

With all the advance systems the police have in place for stopping motorists lets make sure that the offenders pay the real price for the insurance they avoided paying.


Source Dave Burn of T R Youngs / Allstyles Insurance

To contact Dave Burn for your insurance requirements please follow this link here

 

 

Renting now cheaper than buying in many areas according to recent research

The May edition of Rentguard Insurance's "Property Eye" has an article saying that according to research released by Countrywide Residential Lettings, rising house prices mean that the cost of renting relative to buying has fallen.

The report suggests that in 2014, the average tenant pays 93p in rent for every £1 spent repaying a mortgage which represents a year on year decrease of 3p.

It also shows that house prices have risen more quickly that rents over the last 12 months across 87% of England, Scotland and Wales.  The 13% of areas where the cost of renting rose relative to buying were mainly in the North East of England or South West Wales.

In London the average tenant spends 86p on rent, down from 93p a year ago, for every £1 spent by a homeowner.  And it is now cheaper to rent than buy in 30 out of the 33 London boroughs, up from 25 in 2013.

Nick Dunning, group commercial director at Countrywide said: “As house prices rise, renting increasingly allows people to live in areas they would otherwise be unable to afford to buy.  In more expensive cities, such as London, the cost of renting in more central areas can be just half the cost of buying.  The result is that in the most central areas of London, and many other global cities, over half the population now rent.”

“While homeowners can benefit from increases to the value of their home over the long-term, homeownership itself doesn’t automatically equate to large financial returns.  The money saved by renting can be invested in other ways.  The reality is that tenants, far from being priced out of the market in the long-term, have benefitted from the flexibility this growing and increasingly professional sector offers.”


In the meantime Why not visit Rentguard Insurance Here and access their website for property insurance requirements?