Image by: Alan Stanton

…and it looks like UK taxpayers could be footing the bill!

It has been estimated by the Association of British Insurers that damages caused in recent London riots could cost “well over £100m”.  With hundreds of businesses and members of the public affected by loss and damage, insurance companies can expect a vast amount of claims to be made in the coming weeks.

Although most insurance companies will be honouring insurance claims in this situation, a 125 year old clause states that insurers have the right to reclaim the money from the police authorities.  The Riot Damages Act of 1886 specifies that damages caused by those “riotously and tumultuously assembled” should be compensated for by local police Authorities, in this case The Metropolitan Police Authority.

So where does the taxpayer come into this?  The Met suggested in a statement to the Guardian that as there are no funds in place to deal with situation like this, the cost could come out of reserves which incidentally are funded by the taxpayer.  A spokesman for the Met said, “No specific fund is maintained by the Metropolitan police authority to cover claims against such contingencies, but we maintain general reserves to cover unexpected events. Such risks cannot be insured against.”

A partner at law firm Reynolds Porter, Stuart White explained:

“The theory is that the police are responsible for keeping law and order, and if they fail, they pay for the damage”. 

Barrister Daniel Barratt further explained “The police are required to pay compensation to any person who has suffered losses as a result, including those who have had property stolen,

This would cover not only the owners of the businesses, but (for example) owners of clothes which were damaged by looting of a dry cleaners.”

Those affected have been urged to make their claims as quickly as possible. The Riot Damage Act states that all claims to the police are to be made within 14 days and as such it is likely to be a requirement in most insurance policies that a claim of this nature be made within 7 days.

People are also advised to check with their insurance providers to confirm what they are covered for as it is possible that not everything will be covered.  For example, a car insurance holder who is covered under third party, fire and theft is likely to find that if their car has been burned out they will be covered by their policy, but they will not be in the event of a brick through the window.

 Do you think it is fair for the police to compensate those affected by the riots?  Who do you think should foot the bill for the cost of damages made? Let us know in the comments section below!

Go Compare's singing salesman (Image www.gocompare.com)

The brand agency Uffindel has researched how much brands are loved. The study claims to measure the success of a brand based on the quality of relationships that those brands have with their customers. The findings have been developed into the agencies BrandLove Index.

It aims to reveal the depth of love that customers have with brands and, ultimately, identify the perfect relationship formula for brands looking to win over customers.

The researchers found that consumers favour brands in the technology and fast food sectors over brands in the financial sector.  Insurance brands fared the worst of all with the bottom 10 being dominated by seven insurance and pension brands.

In total 29 financial brands were analysed and 2,000 people were surveyed. The worst brand at number 29 was Go Compare, which is unsurprising considering their singing salesman featured on their ads is slightly irritating. Uffindell said this overall picture suggests the brand needs to work harder to build emotional connection with its customers to complement its stable and safe image

The other most un-loved brands were:

• Standard Life (24th)
• Barclaycard (25th)
• AXA (26th)
• Admiral (27th)
• Legal & General (28th)

The research also concluded that the financial service brands we love the most are First Direct, Pay Pal and Nationwide. NatWest, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland which taxpayers were forced to bailout at a cost of $45bn, came forth surprisingly. Could the public have forgotten about the banking crisis already? The relative newbie in the financial services industry Tesco clutched fifth place. This could be a result of Tesco’s strong brand reputation across other industries.

Overall the results show that well established names from the insurance sector, which escaped the worst of the financial crisis, sit at the bottom of the index. The index highlights the need for the insurance industry to work much harder at building stronger customer relationships.

Do you think the BrandLove Financial Services Index accurately reflects the public’s opinion of the financial companies involved?

What do you think can be done to improve the relationships financial companies have with their consumers?

There are other types of insurance out there of course – bunny insurance, anyone? – and most of us will never have to worry about them. It doesn’t make them any less interesting, though.

Take footballers – talented sportsmen, making the kind of money in a week most of us will only ever dream of. But what happens if they hurt their feet – damn fragile metatarsals – and can’t play? Well, just we do with our cars and phones, footballers have their valuables insured.

Imagine insuring Wayne Rooney. Check out the graphic below, put together earlier this year by the folks at Confused.com and published on visual.ly, to see how much it probably costs Wayne Rooney to insure his talented tootsies, and how the cost of his policy could be calculated.

What have you had insured that you’d be lost without? Are you happy to pay the monthly premium or do you think you could get a better deal?

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Phone insurance complaints have gone up by two thirds in the past year after people complained that they were miss-sold insurance in some way. Whether they didn’t need insurance, actually already had it, or were lied to about the type of cover they were getting, a lot of people aren’t too happy with their mobile phone insurance.

More than 3000 complaints have been made, which then lead to around 900 investigations with the Financial Ombudsman Service, but apparently those numbers are just the start.

As I’ve never owned an overly expensive phone, I never see the point in getting mobile phone insurance, as the money I’d have spent on it over the month could just be put towards a new phone if I break it. Though maybe if I had an iPhone I would think a little differently.

One of the biggest contributing factors has been many drivers not providing accurate information when seeking car insurance quotes on the internet or over the phone. They may underestimate the number of miles they drive in a year or what they use their car for, making it very difficult for insurers to accurately judge the amount of risk involved in insuring them. If they do have an accident, insurers are either forced to pay out more than anticipated, or may refuse to pay out at all, meaning that the driver will be expected to pick up some of the tab in increased premiums the following year.

Leading insurance industry figures have also pointed an accusing figure at “no win, no fee” lawyers who are increasingly seeking damages on behalf of clients injured in a car accident through no fault of their own. Sometimes disparagingly known as “ambulance chasers”, these lawyers can expect to be paid substantial fees if victorious and are believed to be responsible for up to 200 injury damages claims every day. Many have been accused of using unscrupulous tactics such as encouraging clients to claims for injuries that are hard to disprove, such as whiplash, and making claims based on accidents that happened several years previously.

This also ties in with an increased number of fraudulent car insurance claims where people make damages claims for injuries that were not actually sustained. In many cases, all claimants need to do is supply a doctor’s note and the insurance company will be unable to disprove their claim. In response to increased fraudulent claims and litigation, the insurance industry has called on the British Government to place restrictions on “no win, no fee” lawyers.

The bad news is that insurance costs look set to rise again for many drivers in the coming years. A new European Court of Justice ruling means that insurers can no longer differentiate based on gender, meaning that young women, who traditionally have paid lower premiums than their male counterparts, can expect to pay up to an extra third on their car insurance from the end of 2012. Young male drivers, on the other hand, can look forward to seeing car insurance quotes drop by up to 10%.

Now it seems there’s an insurance policy for everything. These days you can get insured against being kidnapped, against nuclear incidents or against earthquakes. And you can insure anything – art, any kind of pet, even body parts.

The following is a rundown of my favourite insurance types:

Body Parts Insurance

You may think this is only for celebrities, it’s not. If you rely on your body as a way to earn an income (perhaps models, performers, musicians, artists and minor athletes) then you might be interested in this unusual insurance type.

The policy essentially covers you if you are damaged as the result of an accident in your prized area, and unable to earn an income as a result.

Of course if you are a celebrity, you can still insure your body parts, as Mariah Carey was previously rumoured to have done, along with a lot of other celebrities.

Rabbit Insurance

Your insure your dog or even your cat, so why not your rabbit? This is the question rabbit-loving bloggers Bunnycover ask, with their list of UK rabbit insurance companies.

Although it’s still a relatively new idea, and there are only three companies that currently provide cover for rabbits, the idea is taking off. Especially now that Britain is getting more involved in rabbit show jumping, with hopes to beat off inventors Sweden in the future.

iPhone Insurance

Well, considering the cost of an iPhone, this one actually makes a lot of sense. What many don’t realise is that should you lose your iPhone, break it or damage it, you’re responsible for paying for the cost of a new one.

Unfortunately iPhones do get broken and lost quite a bit, at least according to gadget insurer Protect Your Bubble who revealed that iPhones get stolen, left on the roofs of cars, stolen from handbags and even dropped from hot air balloons or lost while sky diving.

There are currently a handful of insurance companies, most specialist gadget insurance companies, who insure iPhones and other smart phones, although the demand is definitely there for more.

These are but a handful of some of the niche insurance policies out there. And even though we’re in a recession, or a financially dark period at worst, there seems to be no shortage in the number of new and niche insurance policies popping up as the demand is uncovered.

The Strasbourg-based court has ruled that it is unlawful to calculate insurance costs based on gender, meaning that the standard industry practice of charging young male drivers far higher premiums will have to change.

Young women are expected to fare the worst from the change – currently they pay much lower car insurance premiums than their male counterparts because they are deemed to drive more safely and present less of a risk on the roads.

In future, young women can expect to pay significantly higher premiums – perhaps up to £1,000 more every year – while costs for male motorists should decrease slightly in line with the new equality ruling.

At present, women between the ages of 17 and 22 currently pay an average of £1,682 per year for car insurance, while young men in the same age range pay £2,750.

Statistically, the data is stacked against young male drivers. They are twice as likely to make a claim on their car insurance than young women, as well as more than 10 times more likely to be involved in a serious accident and 25 times more likely to commit a road traffic offence during their first three years of driving.

While the court ruling will have the greatest impact on young drivers, it is also expected to have a smaller effect on older motorist who have traditionally enjoyed closer gender parity on insurance costs.

But the creators of Family Guy aren’t the only people who have been providing fresh insights into Santa’s operation. A new infographic from Confused.com highlights just how much Santa has to spend on insurance – including pet insurance for his reindeer, unlimited travel insurance and dental insurance to cover all of his mince pie eating.

For that matter, there are many insurance policies that are silly to think of themselves, but are still offered by many insurance companies, and some are even gaining enormous success, albeit the fact that it’s almost impossible to claim the money.

A classic case is the alien abduction insurance policy, which has so far had no one paid for the claim, even though there were plenty of claims.  Despite the fact that it sounds weird to say the least, alien abduction policies have become very popular in California, and British insurance companies have made nearly 3 million dollars selling policies to gullible people.

In another case, three virgins from Scotland signed a policy with a local insurance company, that the company would pay 1.5 million pounds in the case either one of them becomes a subject of Immaculate Conception. Being so sure that they might get impregnated by a divine force, they’re probably still paying their premiums.

Another funny example is the government of Thailand, which offers tourists riot insurance, in the possible event of a riot rushing out in the country. That, however, even if not expected, is at least a plausible insurance policy, though it is funny how the government is trying to reassure their visitors that they’re in a safe country.

But those are all cases where claims haven’t been paid let’s take a look at some examples when wild claims were actually paid by the companies:

A couple in Malaysia were travelling through the country, and just when they decided to stay in a chalet for one night and left the windows open when they left. Upon their return, the find out those monkeys destroyed some of their belongings, and took some of them too. The insurance company paid the claims of the lost property, even though it was found days later in the adjacent jungle.

An old man was peacefully throwing up on his boat trip from one island to another, suffering from seasickness, when his prosthetic teeth fell into the ocean. After lots of debate and arguing with the insurance company, they finally agreed to cover the expenses of the old man’s teeth, after he made a pretty convincing case explaining that he couldn’t have removed his teeth while throwing up.

Upon their trip through the UK, a couple had a pair of coconuts stolen from them.  They were paid the 50 pounds they initially paid for their insurance to compensate for the two stolen coconuts, even though each one of them cost no more than 70 pence.

There is also the story of the lawyer, who knowingly insured his Cuban cigars against accidental fire and arson, only to offer them to one of his friends and claim compensation, but it is doubtable whether this story is true, or whether they actually paid him.

There are some pretty amazing stories considering insurance (interesting to know is that the Danish term is forsikring), which kind of makes you think – shouldn’t I claim even the smallest things, if there’s even the slight chance I’ll get compensated?

Author Byline:

Lyuben Georgiev

However, car insurance can be the biggest hit of all the financial commitments a car brings with it. And according to the AA, things aren’t going to get any better any time soon. The AA has reported the biggest rise in the cost of car insurance since it started tracking the car insurance market. And shock, horror; young drivers are getting the worst deal, with prices for drivers aged 17-22 rising 47% in the past year.

Now, luckily for me, I’m just out of this age bracket, but I know I pay a good £200 more than my mum, so I’m still not completely off the hook. However, it’s even worse for young males, with them having to pay around double what young women are offered. Bad luck boys. With young men apparently being twice as likely to be involved in an accident as a young woman, insurers are unwilling to offer them cheaper prices, with the average cheap quote being £2,457. That’s actually more than my car cost to buy in the first place, so I’m glad I’m not a boy.

But this doesn’t just spell bad times for people who already have a car; it is also leaving a lot of young drivers unable to buy a car in the first place. Some insurers don’t even offer insurance to drivers under 25, so it’s making it even harder for young drivers to get a good price.

However, insurance is something we all need to have, and if you want to run a car, you’re simply going to have to pay the price, no matter how high. Either that, or start getting the bus.

Image via Free Car Insurances.net