Those that know me, appreciate that I work long hours most days of the week and while I thoroughly enjoy what I do, I do need to get away and recharge the batteries from time to time. Like the postman who goes on a walk for his holidays, I like to travel despite being in a plane on average 4 times a week. I do […]
Follow up to last week’s story
Last week I outlined the drama I was having with Telstra. I am not sure what prompted it but I did start to get some action since writing my blog and a locally based case manager was appointed. He rang several times speaking so fast that I could not get the phone number nor the case number despite listening to the message 5 times. At […]
Flood Insurance on homes not to be compulsory
The Federal Government have moved away from their earlier plans and indeed scraped the concept of all insured’s seeking to take out insurance on their home and contents having to take out flood insurance. The most likely reason for this is the fact that in the initial plan, the Federal government would provide subsidies to those homeowners that were in high flood risk and therefore […]
Does the policy protect the Insured when they host Exchange Students
Traditionally, home and contents policies were written to protect the Insured from a wide range of risks that may occur in the ordinary ownership/occupation of the home. Over time some covers have expanded while in other cases cover has been reduced. Last year I did a series on pitfalls to look out for in such policies. (See http://www.allanmanning.com/?p=2284 and others). Many Insured’s with school age children […]
Thanks Brian for the books
I received another generous donation of text books for LMI Group’s insurance library. This time from Brian Peale. I wished I had some of them in my younger days while others I will be reading with interest. Thanks again for your kind donation. Once this latest lot have been catalogued, I plan to have a link from both this blog and the LMI Group home page […]
Can the insurance industry learn from the mistakes of others part 1 – Sending claims services off shore
In a series of three postings, over the next 2 weeks, I will look at the way some of the companies I deal with treat their customers and ask the question, is the insurance industry going down the same path? Over a month ago my home internet stopped working. Armed with the account details I contacted Telstra and they did some tests. They advised that it all looked okay […]
Will allowing accountants provide advice on general insurance really assist SME’s?
I really question the decision by the Federal Government to allow accountants to offer advice on general insurance. I say this from the rare position of being both a Fellow CPA and a Responsible Officer of a company with a current Financial Services Licence. I genuinely believe that the most important contact that any small to medium business owner enters into is their insurance contract. […]
An expensive lesson learned on grain bunkers.
During the course of my career I have handled a great many claims for water damage to grain stored in grain bunkers. The most recent such loss shows how easy it is for an underwriter to be caught insuring something that they have little or no experience in and the outcome can be much worse than anticipated. In this case, when the risk was first […]
Another insurer drops Fire Service Levy in Victoria from 1 April 2013
I learnt through the week that Zurich have announced they will be dropping Fire Service Levy in rural Victoria (Country Fire Authority) to zero and reducing the Metro rate to 25%. Over the coming week I will pull together the current rate for as many insurers as I can and publish the rates. The great news is that the tax that many of us have […]
On the subject of FSL – I love this cartoon
I think Insurance NEWS (the magazine) caught what many of us thought when it came to the appointment of Prof. Allan Fels to investigate the transition of Fire Service Levies. Well done Bill! I am probably too much of an idealist but I would like to think that his appointment has not been the reason why FSL has been dropped before the final deadline of […]