Welcome to our June newsletter! In this edition; Five ways telematics could change insurance by 2025, why so many home-buyers may be paying too much for their home insurance, we ask if cyber insurance should be made compulsory for all UK firms and why the new national living wage increases retails' exposure to claims!

Until next time,

West Craven Insurance

Telematics have already pushed the insurance industry into the modern age in so many different ways. Whether they’re used to monitor driving habits so insurance companies can offer the correct premiums or to track fleets, telematics have been used to develop trust and honesty between customers and insurance companies.

But the full potential of telematics technology has yet to be achieved. They’re already being put to work in other fields such as GPS systems, healthcare, security and even kitchen appliances, so how might we see telematics change insurance over the next 10 years?

Your home, quantified
For years, the only sensors available for a home were smoke detectors, burglary alarm and carbon monoxide sensors. A recent leap in technology has meant that many homes now have sensors that can detect flooding.
Extrapolating this technology could mean we’ll soon have sensors to detect weakening or burst pipes, damp and mould and even issues such as pests! Telematics could even be used to provide an evaluation of a property for a home insurer so they can offer the best deal, much in the same way that some car insurance firms can give you an offer based on your license plate.

Instant Claims
There are already examples of telematics being used to instantly process claims, for example, when a flight is cancelled, an insurance company will instantly process a claim without requiring any information from the client.
Telematics could be used to process information on a car crash, assign the blame and pursue or decline a claim based on the information. Depending on the severity of the crash, it could even be possible for a replacement car to instantly be processed and sent to the claimants’ home!

Health
Currently seen as a bit of a fad for the iPhone generation, many smart phones and smart watches use telematics to monitor heart rate and blood pressure, mostly for the purpose of exercise. 
Within 10 years we could see technology that is capable of monitoring blood pressure, is able to administer medication such as insulin and can monitor your molecular activity for early signs of medical issues.
It’ll put an end to fake sick days and fraudulent medical claims!


Status monitoring
A fairly new usage of the technology is its application as a milk monitor! Some fridges can now monitor your levels of milk and send you alerts telling you that you need to stock up.
This type of telematics could be used to monitor the status of various aspects of your home and car, automatically installing updates to fix any potentially damaging bugs or viruses, everting the need for expensive claims further down the line.
All insurance under on price

In the future, we might see motor, home, travel, life and health insurance all coming under one insurance policy – thanks to telematics.
The technology will monitor your exercise habits, food and drink choices, driving habits, hobbies and the area you live in to offer a comprehensive insurance quote which covers every aspect of your life.

Telematics are already a bigger part of everyday life then you may have realised, and now they are set to revolutionise the business!

Home-buyers are being warned that they could be paying over the odds for home insurance after research revealed that one in seven took out policies with their mortgage lender.

The study, carried out among 2,000 homeowners from the UK, found that 14% of homeowners purchased home insurance via that route with almost half of those admitting they did so out of convenience. Three quarters of those homeowners hadn’t even compared other products and policies available!

Mortgage lenders require you to have adequate buildings insurance to protect the property, typically against fire, flood subsidence and storm damage. While most lenders offer home insurance, borrowers are not and should not feel obliged to purchase it if from them.

When homeowners were questioned as to why they had opted to buy insurance from their mortgage lender, 14% thought it might help with their mortgage application and astonishingly 9% claimed they didn’t know they could buy cover elsewhere.

Just over a third of people who arranged cover through their lender said they didn’t check their cover levels and excesses to make sure they were purchasing the right policy for their needs.

When looking for the right home insurance deal, remember that the level and type of cover is just as important as the price. Of course, we all hope to never have to claim on our home insurance but should disaster strike, then it can be worth its weight in gold.

We will be able to find you the right policy at a great price – if you need to find non-standard home insurance (for example, a listed building), we can do the shopping around for you. We will find the policy that best suits your needs and act for you if you need to make a claim, ensuring it’s an easy, stress-free process.

Want to know how to reduce the cost of home insurance? Here’s our top tips!

- Increase security
- Install alarms
- Build your no-claims discount
- Buy building and contents insurance together
- Pay annually
- Take advantage of offers

 

It’s huge right now and cybercrime is on the rise with criminals coming up with new ways to hack into businesses and make a quick buck every day. As technology advances and UK firms become more reliant on computers, servers and networks, so do the risks become greater. For most businesses, unfortunately cyber-attacks are a case of when, not if.

Despite the threat, just a quarter of businesses (24%) are taking steps to protect themselves from being the victim of a cyber-attack despite the Office for National Statistics revealing that there were 2.5million incidents of cybercrime just between May and August of 2015.
Such attacks include:
Malware – Software that can gather and steal information from other computers without the user knowing.
Virus – A compute ‘bug’ that can be replicated and spread to other computers and networks.
Trojan horse – A code that is hard to detect but can steal and destroy key data.
Phishing – A corrupted link, usually found in an email, and when clicked can cause a computer to crash or trick users into giving away passwords or sensitive information.

The Insurance Times reported that 60% of SME businesses in the UK experienced a cyber breach last year, with the average attack costing around &75,000 in damage to the business. However, only 98% of UK companies are currently trading without any form of cyber insurance, leaving them vulnerable to attacks.

What cyber insurance is available?
Cyber insurance can be a valuable tool for mitigating losses from data security breaches. For UK companies, there is cyber insurance cover ranging from &100,000 up to &5m and even more depending on the size of the company. The cover available includes legal fees, loss of income, hacker damage, extortion costs, loss of third party data, PR and business interruption compensation.

Generally cyber risks fall into first party and third party risks. Insurance products exist to cover either or both of these types of risk.
First-party insurance covers your business’s own assets. This may include:
• Loss or damage to digital assets such as data or software programmes
• Business interruption from network downtime
• Cyber exhortation where third parties threaten to damage or release data if money is not paid to them
• Customer notification expenses when there is a legal or regulatory requirement to notify them of a security or privacy breach
• Reputational damage arising from a breach of data that results in loss of intellectual property or customers
• Theft of money or digital assets through theft of equipment or electronic theft

Third-party insurance covers the assets of others, typically your customers. This may include:
• Security and privacy breaches, and the investigation, defence costs and civil damages associated with them
• Multi-media liability, to cover investigation, defence costs and civil damages arising from defamation, breach of privacy or negligence in publication in electronic or print media
• Loss of third party data, including payment of compensation to customers for denial of access, and failure of software or systems

 

Want to know how we could help you? Contact us here 

The new minimum wage, known as ‘The National Living Wage’ was introduced on the 1st April this year with the hourly rate for workers aged 25 and over being raised from &6.70 to &7.20. That represents &910 more a year for full-time employees.

The retail industry is one of the largest employers in the UK and employs nearly three million people in the UK. In fact, retailers will need to find up to &3bn more a year to pay staff by 2020, according to the British Retail Consortium.

These higher labour costs could lead to cuts in staff numbers, hours or stores, price rises and the adoption of new technology such as self-service machines.

In an attempt to protect margins, retailers may bypass the reputational issues the changes might create. They may put workers onto flexible contracts while changing benefits packages, cutting bonuses, overtime schemes and other perks.

But ultimately, employers will have to improve their productivity – or what is produced per worker per hour worked. As well as automation, this could mean better management and more training. Some employers that already pay the voluntary living wage have reported that higher pay itself has led to higher productivity thanks to better-motivated and more loyal staff.

A reduction in hours and jobs may bring other minimum rights and standards to employees’ attention, leading to an increased number of claims for work-related accidents or ill health. Equally, disputes regarding hours, processes or jobs might become more common which leaves employers at greater risk of exposure to employment tribunal claims.