With nearly all of our clients affected by the rising cost of rebuild and replacement, we’ve put together a handy article explaining the changes and what you can do about it. Its vitally important that if you’re unsure of your sums insured that you speak with your dedicated insurance contact as soon as possible.
Many of us will have read about the energy ‘crisis’ and how suppliers are responding to fewer whole sale supply lines. While some media outlets blame Russia, others Brexit and some even the pipelines’ infrastructure, you need to read behind the attention grabbing headlines to understand what’s forcing the price of energy.
Specifically, for insurance, the headline grabbing: “Material costs surge 23% in a year” (credit: constructionnews.co.uk) is accurate. Costs have increased by this percentage on average, with some agri and plant vehicles increasing further still. Factors contributing to this include:
- The rising price of wholesale items as raw materials become more expensive to import
- The Evergiven ship that was stranded in the Suez on 24th March 2021 has caused a backlog still being felt today
- Factories stopping production during 2020 and not catching up on back orders
- Wholesalers struggling to get materials from factories, refineries and production houses
- And more…
This has led to a pressure on claims settlements and recovery times following insured losses. The impact of this means premiums are increasing as insurers are indexing sums insured at their highest level for over 10 years to combat potential underinsurance.
Indexation does help your policy weather these short term headaches. It relies on the sums insured being accurate at the start of the policy. It is at this point that uncertainty around sums insured can arise
Luckily we can help. There are a number of measures we’ve put together both internally and with external suppliers to ensure you are not caught out when you need your policy most.
For all of the above we can offer a service with our partners at RebuildCostAssessment.com (RCA) to offer a desktop or site valuation. Starting from as little as £161 inc VAT for upto 5 properties at one location, RCA will provide a report with up-to-date costs per m2 and give you and your insurer confidence in the rebuild value. This service is open to all of our clients and more details are available here or from your dedicated insurance contact.
A range of options are available to our clients from full asset inventories to having a wander around your workstations, the key here is to assess what it would cost to replace items and not just what they are worth today. Calculators are available online and sometimes insurers will help assess this as part of a survey on premises.
Using our partner insurer Aviva, we can help clients assess their business interruption needs using online calculators and tools. This is open to all of our business and farming clients who need guidance when considering how much and for how long to insure against losses. To find out more about this free service please get in touch with your dedicated insurance contact.
Charlotte Clayton, a member of our Household Schemes team, has designed a home contents calculator that you can use as an aide when considering your home furniture and items. Using the simple walk and assess as you go method, the calculator will help you consider the true cost of replacing contents within your home. To obtain a free copy of this please get in touch with your dedicated insurance contact.