Yet more issues that need addressing + bouquets and brickbats

I was contacted via one of the fire brigades, concerned at the increasing cessation of mandatory fire appliance inspections such as sprinklers, fire extinguishers, and the like. This is due to a combination of lock downs/access restrictions and inability, say, through illness, of the fire officers or private contractors to perform these mandatory works.

There will, no doubt, be dozens of issues such as this, arising during these unusual times. Hopefully, as an industry we will do the right thing and use common sense.

With this one, I would have thought that a six (6) month moratorium would be the answer. Both the insurance industry and government would need to agree.

The same would apply to things like testing and tagging, and I am sure a number of other regulatory requirements.

I must say that I had a tough day yesterday. While I have witnessed many acts by those in the industry that made me proud to be part of the profession. I was also extremely depressed following the approach by some loss adjusters and claims officers to hold back settlement offers to vulnerable businesses, clearly in the hope of achieving a lower settlement. Shame on those involved, did we learn nothing from the Royal Commission?

Clearly, some clients will not buckle, and two yesterday started work on preparing a formal complaint to be forwarded to ASIC. I hope that the regulator comes down on these rogues like a ton of bricks.

We cannot have such behavior if we hope to ever rebuild trust in our profession.

On the other hand, my faith in the industry was reinstated this morning by the announcement made by IAG/CGU, for a wide range of measures. Please, visit InsuranceNEWS for full details. IAG/CGU you are to be applauded.

However, there is a possible unintended consequence. As a broker, Peter [surname and email withheld] wrote:

“However, brokerages will require a full operation to continue to process the renewals, claims and adjustments, to cover over the coming months and incur the relevant wages and expenses, but they won’t get paid for 6 months. So, these business will experience more hardship than the businesses that are receiving the reprieve. The businesses receiving the reprieve are likely to not be open (via a lock down), can stand down staff and minimise their expenses. A broking business won’t be able to do that. If a business does downsize and doesn’t attend to their clients needs, the risk is the client could be exposed unnecessarily, or the brokerage becomes exposed to a PI claim.

For our part, we are looking at every means at our disposal to assist and support our insurer, broker and other clients through this period.