Above Average? 

We all know what average means in real life but in insurance terms it is something you all should certainly know about. This post is extremely relevant to my last one (the pitfalls of using comparison sites) and to anyone who may be getting their insurances direct from the internet or over the phone with an insurer. 

Whilst you might think that phoning an insurer directly might get you speaking to a real person the chances are that they are in an administrative role and are simply clicking / typing the same questions that you might be had you used the internet. Whilst I am sure some take pride in their job the chances of getting any actual 'advice' are slim. 

So whats the point I am getting to... well... here goes. When you are happily plugging away buying your home or shop insurance on the internet and it gets to the bit that asks how much you want to insure your contents for what do you do:

A) Guess the total?

B) Decide what the most likely loss is and put that? 

C) Logically go room to room seeking a decent estimate / consult your accounts?

I would imagine no-one using the internet to purchase their insurance goes for option C. So your next question is why does this matter? Well it matters because if you guess and find yourself underinsured you will be subject to 'average'. Similarly if you decide what the likely loss is (rather than the total loss) then once again you will be staring at the 'average' clause. 

What the average clause really means (and it will be present on 99.9% of policies where property is involved) is that the insurers want to collect an appropriate premium for the risk they are insuring. This means that they apply a clause to encourage all sums insured to represent a maximum possible loss. Failure to set the sums insured at these levels results in your payout being prejudiced by the same amount you are under insured. 

For example - 

You have a total contents value of £60,000

You only insure £30,000 thinking that you wont ever have a claim resulting in a loss which goes above this limit - I mean what are the chances???

An ingress of water damages £10,000 worth of your contents. 

The insurers look at the sums insured you have selected and assess the total value of your contents. It is clear you are at least 50% under-isured so they take 50% away from the claims payment. 

You only get £5,000 (minus your policy excess) towards your loss meaning you are also £5,000 out of pocket. 

I am sure, having read the example above that you appreciate how important it is to make sure that you are insuring your property for the maximum possible loss. If you have not had advice to this effect from your insurance provider / broker then I am sure you may be inclined to consider a move to a broker who is keen to give you such advice as this and who passionately cares about protecting your business. (I almost want to use a cheesy line like 'your business is our business' or perhaps the other way around). 

Talk to us. 

Alistair 

Go Compare some Money Supermarket Meerkats

Consumer website Moneyvista - www.moneyvista.com - provided food for thought in a recent article about using price comparison websites. Of course we have all experienced these and we know how cheap they can be but cheap is a bad word. How often do we use the word 'cheap' to describe something of substandard quality - the right answer is often. So why should it be any different with insurance products. Here are some pitfalls you might want to think about before using a price comparison website -

1. Excessive Excess?
You will often be asked to choose your excess - be careful as this is often a voluntary excess which will be added to the standard excess of whichever insurer you eventually choose. It is not unknown for people to end up with an excess close to £1000. Similarly you might put into the system that you would like an excess of £250 but the insurers that come up on the final list may have a minimum excess which is higher - check the small print.

2. Who are you paying?
Imagine going into the supermarket and everything in there is in a plain box with just a word describing what it is. You wouldn't be able to buy your favorite brand or the fruit that looked the best. Would you buy the box that was the cheapest then? Of course not because we associate cheap with bad. With insurers you often don't know how good they are until you have a claim or need to make an amendment so why trust an unknown? I am not saying that some of the smaller companies are not good, I am simply saying that you should do some research.

3. Compare the Compared!
If you are going to use a comparison website please remember that if an insurer doesn't come up it does not mean that they are not competitive, it means that the insurer in question will not trade through these sites. The comparison websites will have negotiated rates and licenses to sell certain insurers products but these rates are not necessarily reflective of the rates you might get from the insurer directly so if you use a comparison website why not then go direct to the insurer and see what rate you get then. You will almost certainly receive favorable terms.

So please remember that cheap does not equal better. There is a BIG difference between a cheap insurer and a competitive insurer. If in doubt, give us a call and we will be happy to provide advice and even a quotation - even in the modern internet age a Broker is still in a position to provide you with quality products and services at competitive prices.

If you pay peanuts you get monkeys 

(or bad quality insurance products but that ending didn't quite roll off the tongue). 

A Feast of Sunshine and Smoothies

On Saturday the 30th June a band of Fairweather staff lived up to their name and brought sunshine to proceedings at the Feast of St Peter - Chalfont St Peter's annual summer festival. There was live music, community stalls, local businesses, displays, sports, kids events and everything in between. We were very pleased to see our friends from Chalfont St Peter Community Library well represented.

We were doing our best to provide smiles and refreshing smoothies to the crowed who had gathered on Gold Hill Common. In fact the smoothies were so popular we actually ran out of ingredients on a couple of occasions - our staff having to make a rapid b-line to the shops to stock up.

It's always a pleasure to engage with the local community from both a business point of view and a social one. Villages are sustained very much by the people within them and supported by the businesses that rely on the local population and so it is only right that we try to give something back.

Both Personal Lines and Commercial Lines Teams represented here with Ash and Emma ready and waiting to hand out smoothies and to help with any insurance queries. 

If you spotted us at the Feast Day but didnt have a chance to grab a smoothie (or even if you did) we would be happy to welcome you at Chalfont Hall (opposite the Wagon and Horses pub) for a cup of tea or coffee instead where we will be happy to discuss the insurance arrangements for your car, home, business or anything in-between.

See you soon.

The FW team.

Olympic Premiums?

Typically we would advise a client to take out Terrorism cover, particularly where the location of the property or business dictates that this would be a good idea i.e. inner M25, next to power stations, points of interest etcetera. The cost of this is often nominal compared to the premium itself and is not going to break the bank. Certainly it is value for money if your in a 'likely area'. These Terrorism extensions are generally correlated to the sums insured already attributed to your policy. 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has gone one step further in securing a policy with a sums insured of £62,000,100. This amount has been divided among the 26 International Sports Federations Competing at the Games. 

So it seems its not just the government that are cautious over such risks (having confirmed the deployment of surface to air missile systems, helicopter carriers in the Thames and thousands of troops). All we can hope for is a safe and successful games, perhaps along with some sunshine? That would be nice. 

Alistair

Going Social

I was thrilled to welcome guest speakers from Urban Media www.urbanmedia.co.uk and Zebedee internet www.zebedeeim.co.uk yesterday to speak to local businesses and some of our commercial clients about the importance of web presence online. I am not the expert - you need to speak to them about that but there were some key lessons which I would share with you now. Simple things which might assist you in maximising your web-presence, engaging with your customers and boosting you towards the top of any google search. 

1. Don't think you need to Facebook? Wrong! 

Facebook isn't just for the young herberts out there but is an incredibly useful tool (along with Twitter, Pintrest, Youtube etcetera...) for making your business accessible. If you are selling direct to consumers then it is a fantastic way of engaging with them in an informal manner and importantly gives them an instant platform with which to engage back with you. 

Even if you sell business to business it is important to have this presence. Facebook likes, comments and shares, twitter re-tweets etcetera are amongst the most weighted factors in driving your business to the top of google. This has the potential to put you on top of your competitors. If I am searching for accountants for example 'who will appear at the top?' the Accountant who does social media or the one who doesn't? It is also the case that only 2% of people searching will go to the second page of any google search so it is key to get on that first page. 

2. Make it Interactive

Whatever social media platform you are using its important to make it interactive, to prompt that re-tweet or Facebook share. When using something like Facebook you might want to think about asking for feedback or offering reward for sharing a post i.e. 'like this photo and we will enter you into a prize draw to win.....' Twitter doesn't quite work in the same way as it is a quick and fast way of getting snippets of information out there. To encourage people back towards your blog or website try using half finished information or an intriguing questions, a good example given during yesterday's seminar was 'look whose upset the applecart now' which sparks a readers intrigue. Remember Twitter is limited to 140 characters but if you want people to re-tweet keep it to 120 so the end doesn't get cut off. 

3. A Little Planning Goes a Long Way 

One of the key points to come out of the seminar was that really if you plan content (content is king by the way) there is no reason why social media needs to take over your life. For example a few blog posts can be tweeted and facebook linked over a week and related photos or articles posted so one piece of work can then be used in different ways to generate traffic. Take this blog post for example - I have four potential Facbook posts. I could post the opening bit about holding the seminar and encouraging people to read the rest of the post. I could also then post a 'daily social media tip'. It is all about content planning. Plan well and you will make social media work for you with minimal time spent on your part. 

So there you are - I hope those snippets were useful. If you would like to know more please get in touch as we will probably be running similar seminars in the near future. Also you should definately check out the websites above to find out more. 

Happy Socialising. 

Alistair