I read this morning that the NSW Fire and Rescue have today reported that there have been 45 fires directly related to lithium batteries since the beginning of the 2024 year. Sadly also two people have lost their lives in the fires and possibly a third yet to be confirmed. The reality is that Lithium batteries are in many items today and we need to […]
Time to review Gross Rentals Values
One of the ever increasing costs of being a landlord, particularly in Victoria is land tax and property rates. The values of properties are being reviewed by state governements and/or local councils and it is going up year on year. Another trick that some States Governments have introduced, and I again use Victoria as an example is that the property owner only has 60 days […]
Is the Indemnity Period long enough
In the claims we are handling we are seeing more and more that the Indemnity Period runs out before the business returns to normal. This is due to a number of issues including but not limited to: The final point has promoted LMI to include in our service a clinical psychologist to assist clients during the process. Click here for more details. With this background […]
A reminder to review Sub-Limits
I think we all know the importance of reviewing declared values, sums insured and or Limits of Liabilty every year. This is extremely important at the moment with construction costs escallating as much as they have in the past. The same issue is there for machinery and plant, other contents and replacement stock. In addition to this the Australian dollar has fallen in value with […]
Reflecting on the first 25 Years of LMI Group
Today marks LMI Group’s quarter century of service to the insurance industry and wider communities. What better way to reflect on all that our dedicated team have accomplished but list 50 highlights from our first 25 years that you may not know (or have forgotten) the Group. As an aside, I tried to narrow this down to 25 for 25 but I was over this […]
ICNZ’s fight to remove unfair FENZ levy
As reported in Insurance News, New Zealand Insurers are working once again to abolish the unfair fire and emergency services levy imposed on Insurance policies. Those who have followed me for a while know the hard work we have put in to fight the same thing here in Australia, where we have been successful in Victoria and through www.NoTaxOnInsurance.com where we continue our efforts for the […]
The New Zealand Government needs to abolish the Fire Service Levy on Insurance
As you all know, I have worked strongly over the years looking at getting the Australian government to abolish all tax on insurance, namely the Fire Service Levy, from all states. We have been successful in many areas, the New South Wales government is currently phasing out the Fire Service Levy there. Last month however I could not believe that while Australia has almost got […]
Leave insurance to private enterprise
I read with disbelief that Mr Gerry Brownlee, the Minister for the Earthquake Commission, claims that New Zealand’s national natural disaster insurance scheme has been a huge success and recommends that Australia follow suit. I for one could not disagree more. The fact that so many claims are still not settled and the recent negotiated settlement which confirmed that many claims that had been settled had been done on the wrong […]
Blog question on demand surge following a catastrophe
Hi Allan We specialise in insurance valuations in my capacity as a valuer. I do lots of work with [name quoted] from [general insurance broker named] brokers who you may know. I had a question which was posed to me by an Owners Corporation Manager and I would love to hear your perspective: In addition to the full replacement/reinstatement value (total limit of liability) – what […]
Joint Statement on What Constitutes a Repair Under the Earthquake Commission Policy – now released
I read with the interest the joint statement between the Earthquake Commission and the EQC Action Group with the main item, which has hopefully now been resolved, is what constitutes reinstatement. The agreement confirms that reinstatement is to a condition ‘as new’ and not the pre-earthquake condition of the property. This issue, which I thought had been resolved with the introduction of the reinstatement or […]