All change with leaseholders’ flats insurance & NHS waiting lists

Hello again.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from a study it took into the cost of residential flats insurance has made clear that brokers arranging property insurance were abusing their position for the sake of a commission.

For the record the practice previously adopted by contemporaries we found outrageous and refused to participate in it.

The scam as I don’t see any other word for it was that to secure the blocks insurance, some brokers had been paying commissions to third parties like managing agents to get the mandate which to me is nothing short of a backhander. As if that wasn’t bad enough some brokers failed in the FCA report to have any oversight and controls of what was going on.

Having lived in a flat and questioned the landlord’s costs for insurance I was told it was the managing agent who dealt with it. Needless to say, the agents never replied to questions on how the cost for the building’s insurance was established. Not all managing agents are small fry and this new move will be serious blow to them but given estate agents are not exactly the most popular people, I doubt many leaseholders will be too worried.

In effect where lease holders could have got a discount on their insurance the broker used, paid it directly to the managing agent who put in in their back pocket as a thank you and didn’t pass it on.

‘Full disclosure’ is now going to be a regulatory requirement, but please be sure to ask for it always, it is your right to do so.

It didn’t help that some Insurers were in on the game and the FCA is dealing with their oversight and controls. I guess when they were offering brokers up to 30% commission unless the broker wanted all of it, they had a lot to share. The worst part is that it wasn’t illegal. In my view it was morally abhorrent and cost every leaseholder of a flat extra money every year unnecessarily. It won’t happen overnight, but it will be fully regulated before the year is out.

So if you’re hacked off with the way you have been treated on your insurance for your block of residential leasehold or freehold flats by your managing agent, and want to deal with a Broker for your insurance cover who is prepared to make clear what problem’s you may face and is not part of any old boys back handers club. Then please call your managing agent and get them to deal with Trident Insurance. They may suggest over their dead body in which case go to the Freeholder directly and register your objection. As part of our service we will copy the chairperson or the residents association in on the communications we have with the managing agent and give you the real picture of what’s the right cost for insurance should be along with the best possible price we can supply you with and idealistically build a new working relationship with you.

On the NHS, it’s difficult to know where to start but if its possible to take the emotion out of it and the NHS is probably the most emotionally charged social service so we are treading on glass here.

At the last count there were 7.1 million appointments/ operations/consultations outstanding. Not so long ago it was in the realms of 300,000 We may be at a peak but that is no consolation and if it’s possible to entertain the idea then the topic of private medical insurance for you, your family and your business needs to come up and be spoken about.

With medical insurance, a pre-existing condition may well be excluded from cover and undeniably some surgery will not be picked up by the private hospitals as the NHS is the only party to offer it. But for a lot of less major issues it may be the answer to, dare I say it, jump the queue and save the pain.

We have two people here **who can advise you and our primary insurer is AXA, a well-known brand and provider of medical insurance and I can tell you from personal experience they were excellent when I was in a bind.

I was in Canada and had a minor heart attack, to make it worse I was on Vancouver Island which is half the size of the UK but has a population of just over a million people. I was staying in a beautiful, but out of the way place called Strathcona. I felt bad and a medic was called, an ambulance came for me and took me to the nearest doctor who loaded me up with morphine and I was helicoptered to the main hospital where they replaced a stent and was out of the hospital in a few days

Not being Canadian but having AXA medical insurance the whole cost was just shy of 45,000 Canadian Dollars, or about £28,000. Axa paid for everything.

I has to wait a week before I could fly back home. The irony was they were replacing a stent put in by the NHS. Be that as it may, the whole exercise was handled so well I really couldn’t fault it.

I know medical insurance is as political as it is emotional but there’s no two ways about it, waiting for an appointment let alone a consultation and if necessary, an operation is getting worse and will take years to address.

Would I recommend private medical insurance? Honestly not always, if you can wait or have been pretty fit all your life then leave be if that’s your view. But which ever way I look at things it’s already happening by the back door in the NHS and they are having to pay private hospitals to help.

Knowing as we love the NHS and suggesting even thinking about private healthcare is heresy, but I would rather put part of what we earn as a company to supporting our staff and have the peace of mind if they don’t feel right and need to call, in our case AXA, to deal with the issue, than see them struggle to cope. We can’t gamble with our health so as a firm we now offer medical insurance as a service to you.

If you as an individual, a family or a business want to talk to:

**Antony Finigan (antony@trident-insurance.co.uk ) 020 8911 1412 or ** Ben Boakes (benboakes@trident-insurance.co.uk) 020 8911 1415

They will advise you on what AXA can do for you.

Other than that, its been a month of Insurers and re-insurers highlighting under insurance but not much else.

Please remember we are here to help and provide you with a good service, and get the right insurance at the best price we can find from our panel of top grade Insurance companies.

Have a good Bank Holiday and Coronation and I will catch up next month.

Kindest regards

Robert D Marshall