The insurance sector Is looking strong coming out of the recession
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012Insurance covers almost everything these days and the world wide web has in part produced a highly transparent and competitive market place for insurance providers. You are required by law to have certain insurance such as car insurance or medical insurance in some countries. Other insurance although optional in law is seen by most as a ‘must have’ such as home insurance or insurance for a person’s business interests or property belonging to their business. There is then another type of product aimed with the needs of consumers in mind that is highly specialised such as pet insurance, wedding insurance or certain types of extreme sports insurance. Either in the high street or on the internet, businesses tender different excesses and policy prices dependent on many different things. There is also a secondary market for the services of insurance brokers who act as agents buying products at the behest of their consumer or corporate clients. Another service offered primarily through agents is underwriting.
This is where the risks of any given insurance venture are calculated and the underwriter determines the premium and cost of the insurance or whether to insure at all. To take the example of car insurance, the underwriter would take a detailed look at a driver’s accident record. In medical insurance, another example might be where the patient’s sickness record is examined. The internet certainly helps the insurance marke maintain its competitiveness and transparency but many customers are still finding themselves uninsured when it really matters. A good example of this is winter sports insurance. It is reported that over half of holidaymakers to winter skiing destinations are uninsured and although the other half do, only a quarter of them are in fact insured for skiing and snowboarding which are classified by almost all insurance firms as ‘extreme sports’ and excluded from their plans. Many European travelers also think that their E111 will cover them for treatment but this is not true in most resorts. A very recent example of The adaptation of the insurance sector is the furious competition on price between opposing travel insurance firms that has been in the main facilitated by the introduction of price comparison sites. Car insurance is required by law so everyone must purchase it. This causes pricing to be the primary competitive factor.
A recent negative example in the insurance sector was when payment protection insurance policies (PPI’s) were discovered by the FSA to be completely worthless or having been fraudulently sold to customers. This has lead to a huge amount of litigation and firms actually being set up for the single purpose of acting as legal assistants so that customers can claim back any PPI that might have been missold to them. Compare travel insurance on the web for the greatest bargain. Another questionable product is internet security insurance that promises to refund the subject for any loss as a result of cyber fraud or identity theft. However many people are unaware that the bank is in most sets of circumstances liable for such acts.