West Craven

A Guide to Travel Insurance, 50% of Parents Willing to Commit Insurance Fraud for Their Children, Plus More

Welcome to the May edition of the West Craven newsletter.

This month we look at which insurance policies should be considered essential for SMEs, we share our guide for buying travel insurance, we investigate why 50% of parents are willing to commit insurance fraud, and we tell you what you need to know about cyber attacks.

Until next time,

West Craven Insurance

The Essential SME Insurance Policies

Did you know that 99% of businesses in the UK are classified as ‘small’?

So how can small businesses survive in industries that are full of unique risks? They need to ensure they have all the correct business insurance policies in place. Take a look at our guide to the essential business policies.

Public Liability
Public Liability is an essential cover for those whose business may interfere with those around you, including customers, local neighbours, passersby, the environment and even trespassers.

A good business will always keep the safety of the public in mind when conducting themselves, but no one has the power to predict when an accident is going to happen. The costs of paying for compensation, medical fees and legal costs can reach incredible levels that small businesses could never hope to cover. A public liability policy can help cover the costs of any legal issues.

A common scenario that public liability insurance can assist you with is a slip on a wet floor. Should a member of the public hurt themselves, they have a right to demand compensation, because as a business owner you have failed at your legal obligation to protect someone who engages with your business.

Professional Indemnity
Professional indemnity cover is specifically for those who give professional advice. For example, lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.

The idea is, should the advice given in a professional capacity have a negative impact on your customer’s finances and/or health, and the customer feels that you acted in a negligent way or provided bad advice, they may wish to seek compensation and take legal action.

For example, if a stockbroker gave poor advice that led to a loss of money, and the investor felt the stockbroker was negligent in their duties, then an investor can sue for compensation.

Products Liability
Manufacturers who create products for members of the public will need products liability. There is always a risk that a product you create may be defective or below standard, which presents a danger to the owner.

There have been recent real life examples of product liability issues. Samsung recently had an issue with their phones catching fire, which led to multiple injuries and damages, which gave customers a right to take legal action.

Employer’s Liability
Protecting your members of staff is an inherent part of the role of employee. You need to ensure all the correct safety regulations are in place for every task, from climbing a ladder and heavy lifting to handling toxic chemicals.

If an employee has an injury at work they can potentially take legal action for compensation, cover for the cost of medical expenses, etc. An Employer’s Liability can assist with the expense of these issues.

Contents
You probably already have contents insurance for your home. A business contents insurance policy works in much the same way. Any physical items on your business premises like computers, machinery, and inventory.

If any contents are stolen, vandalized or broken due to fire, flood or other peril, you can claim from your insurer to have them replaced as soon as possible, to limit your business interruption.

If you need help with understanding the insurance your business needs, get in touch with West Craven Insurance.

A Guide to Buying Travel Insurance

As we head towards the summer and the holiday season, if you’re planning on taking a trip or two getting your travel insurance right could not only save you a headache, but a considerable amount of money.

To help make sure you’re suitably covered when you’re abroad, we’ve put together some helpful tips on some of the things you should consider.

Single-Trip VS Multi-Trip
Depending on how many trips you plan on taking in a 12-month period, it’s worth considering whether it may be more suitable to purchase a multi-trip policy. If you’re positive that you’re only taking 1 trip this year, then a single-trip policy will of course be the best choice. However, if you’ve got 2 or 3 trips planned over the course of 12 months, a multi-trip policy could be considerably cheaper when compared to the collective cost of individual single-trip policies. This is especially true if your holidays are lengthy breaks or quite a far distance e.g. outside of Europe.

The Cover Limits
Unfortunately, even when you're on holiday, things can go wrong. It’s important that you read the fine print an ensure you are adequately covered for certain eventualities such as illness, accident, injury or even cancellation of the trip. For medical expenses, most insurance experts would advise cover of &2 million and for public liability it is recommended your cover limit is &1 million. While some policies may offer a higher limit for these expenses, this will most likely raise the price of your premium, so you should consider if the higher limit is excessive in order to avoid paying over the odds.

The Excess
Following on from cover limits, checking the excess of your cover is also vital. The excess of your claim is the amount you will be required to pay before the insurer pays out. Some policy premiums will look cheap an first glance, but it may be due to a large excess. It is possible to adjust your excess on some policies to a price you feel you are prepared to pay, however, keep in mind that this will have an effect on the premium. It is also worth remembering that some policies will include separate excess charges dependent on the incident. For example, a mugging could fall under medical costs and loss of personal affects and result in excess being charged for both, so take an extra bit of time to read through all the details.

Your Baggage
Baggage cover means that you are covered if your baggage is lost, stolen or damaged and should pay out up to &1,500. Before you add baggage cover to your travel policy, it’s worth checking if your possessions aren’t already covered under your current home contents policy. You should keep in mind that many insurers will have a limit on the payout for individual items such as phones, laptops or cameras. It can at times be quite difficult to claim for items lost when abroad so if possible, keep any receipts or evidence that you took the item with you.

What else should you consider?

- Missed departure: A travel insurance policy will cover any additional expenses that are incurred by missing your flight, due to events outside your control.

- Loss of passport: Covering you for additional travel expenses as a result of replacing a lost passport.
- Delay: Covering you against any delays due to adverse weather, technical issues or industrial action, however, planned strikes will not be included.
- Scheduled airline failure: Covering you in the event of the airline going out of business
- Cash: Covering you for loss of or damage to money held as cash

Excited about your up-coming trip? A good travel insurance policy is as important as sun cream or swimming trunks. Get in touch with West Craven Insurance to arrange the perfect policy at the right price.

Over 50% of Parents Would Consider 'Fronting' to Lower Child's Insurance Premiums

According to recent research, more than half of parents would consider fronting or already have fronted their child’s car insurance in order to lower the cost of their car insurance premium.

Fronting is the practice in which a more experienced driver takes out a policy, claiming that they are the main driver, when in fact the car will most often be driven by a young/high risk driver.

A survey, including a total of 1000 parents with children between the ages of 17-25 who have passed their driving test, revealed that a massive 38% of parents would consider fronting their child’s policy and 16% of parents had already fronted a policy.

Further questioning of the survey participants revealed that 53% of them felt that the cost of their child’s car insurance was a major concern and 30% of participants stated that the premiums were far greater than expected.

It was also found that 60% of parents felt they were being ripped off when it came to purchasing cover for their children and 51% parents believe that the high cost of insurance was a major factor in the number of young drivers who choose not to purchase insurance at all.

Commenting on the results of the survey, Matt Oliver, Car Insurance Spokesman at GoCompare said; “Although it’s understandable that a parent would want to help their child with the cost of getting on the road, it’s important to remember that fronting is a form of insurance fraud. Insurers always investigate claims thoroughly, which means a good chance that any ‘fronting’ will be uncovered if parents do have to claim on the policy.”

Oliver went on to say “Fronting can have serious consequences such as the claim being rejected or invalidating the policy, leaving the driver to foot the bill. Worst still, as insurance fraud is illegal there can even be serious legal consequences, as well as seriously hampering your ability to get insurance in the future. The long-term implications of being caught fronting mean it’s really not worth the risk.”

Fronting a car insurance policy is fraudulent and illegal and also means that your cover would be invalid, which leaves any driver of the car uninsured. In addition to this, those who are caught fronting could end up in court and as a result seriously damage their chances of being accepted for any type of insurance in the future.

Cyber Attacks: What You Need to Know

In the recent Autumn statement delivered by the chancellor Philip Hammond it was announced that &1.9bn will be invested to help strengthen UK cyber security and protect the country from hacking and cyber-attacks, both big and small.

Hammond announced “Our new strategy, underpinned by &1.9bn of support over five years and excellent partnerships with industry and academia, will allow us to take even greater steps to defend ourselves in cyber space and to strike back when we are attacked.”

While there have been similar efforts in the past and it could be argued that &1.9bn isn’t enough to cover all issues relating to cyber security, it is still viewed as a vital step in the right direction, as cybercrime becomes more prevalent throughout the world.

This was backed by minister for the Cabinet Office, Ben Gummer who commented on the autumn statement, saying that “The first duty of the government is to keep the nation safe. Any modern state cannot remain secure and prosperous without securing itself in cyber space. That is why we are taking the decisive action needed to protect our country, our economy and our citizens.”

So what type of attacks fall into the cyber-attacks and hacking category? Unfortunately, it’s quite a wide spectrum and quite a lot to consider from a security perspective, ranging from criminal organisations forming attacks on large businesses, to an opportunistic individual hacking the email account of a member of the general public.

In other cases, we also have the type of cybercrime that doesn’t actually require an individual to hack into a system, but instead use tactics such as phishing. This is quite a common practice in which a user will receive a fake email from a seemingly trusted source in an attempt to draw confidential information from them, allowing someone else access to one of their online accounts e.g. PayPal or Apple.

Another form of attack that many businesses may be vulnerable to is distributed denial of service (DDoS). This method of attack uses multiple systems to target a specific website or system with an enormous amount of traffic, in attempt to cause the system to crash and causing a massive disruption and potential harm to the organisation.

The government’s plans to protect the country against such crimes are to be delivered over the course of the next 5 years, with a strategy designed to “defend, deter and develop” UK capabilities. This strategy has a large focus on uniting all of the countries cyber operations under the newly formed National Cyber Security Centre, while raising awareness of vulnerabilities for organisations and members of the public, so that the majority of attacks can be prevented and in some cases countered against.

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