Yearly archive for 2010

According to industry figures, 60,200 household insurance claims were made during the Winter season last year.  To help householders avoid both the cost and inconvenience of damage to property caused by severe weather, Legal and General Insurance have compiled a leaflet outlining the simple steps a homeowner can take to protect themselves and their properties from the cold this Winter.  To view click on the link below:

Protecting your home this Winter

If you do experience property damage due to the severe weather please call the A1 team who will handle your claim as quickly and painlessly as possible.

With widespread snow already affecting many parts of Scotland and North-East England, weather forecasters are predicting the cold spell will continue over the next week. The cold weather is likely to bring with it the usual problems for your property.

Please click on the following link to view or download a Winter Risk Guide – providing you with practical advice to help minimise the risks of common issues, including:

–  Avoiding burst pipes
–  Building maintenance
–  Keeping pathways clear
–  Temporary heater advice

For further information please do not hesitate to contact us on 01377 318255.

You, your family and friends are paying for the cost of insurance fraud every year.

People who lie when taking out or renewing their insurance policies, or who make false or exaggerated claims are committing fraud.

While you are paying insurance premiums, they have their hand in your back pocket.

Don’t let them feed their greed – insurance fraud is wrong and it’s a crime.

Know of a fraudster?  Pick up the phone and help us make life difficult for them and fairer for you.

CALL THE CHEATLINE 0800 328 2550 FREE AND CONFIDENTIAL.

Report a fraud online at www.insurancefraudbureau.org/city

Ensure you are fully compliant with the law…

Employers may wish to take some of the following practical steps to ensure they are fully compliant with the law.

• Update Equality and Diversity, sickness absence and recruitment policies.
• Audit recruitment processes and review the use of pre-employment health questionnaires.
• Review salary letters, contracts, handbooks and practice on secrecy pay.
• Make amendments to staff inductions regarding diversity and harassment.
• Ensure the Equality and Diversity training is rolled out (to pre-empt a recommendation from the employment Tribunal).
• Ensure that appropriate documents are created and retained so that they can be used as objective justification should any issue arise.
• Take steps to warn third parties that harassment of staff will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

This is a brief synopsis.

We at A1 Insurance can arrange employment protection insurance to look after your employment law problems.

Just e-mail us at info@a1insurance.co.uk

Telephone Alan Beardmore / Ian Darnbrook 01377 318255 to discuss your needs

The average cost of comprehensive cover increased by 8.6% between July and September, however this is a drop on the 14.2% rise last quarter, according to Confused.com/EMB Car Insurance Price Index.

The index revealed that the average comprehensive premium now stands at £650, an increase of £51 in the quarter.

However, the report found that the cost of comprehensive policies has risen 37.5% since October 2009.

Third party, fire and theft (TPFT) cover has risen by 11.7% in the last quarter and 54.2% over the last 12 months.

Men aged 17-20 years old received the biggest quarterly increases for comprehensive policies at 10.9% while older drivers adding children to their policies also continued to receive above average increases.

The index revealed that inner London experienced the largest regional quarterly increase for comprehensive policies at 11.6%.

EMB partner, Peter Lee, said: “The price corrections that have been taking place over the past year or so have been essential to getting many private motor insurers back on an even keel after poor 2009 results. The scale of bodily injury claims inflation revealed in a recent study of 85% of the private motor market has emphasised the need for price rises.”

He continued: “However, the level of increases is starting to slow down; with each month in the quarter showing flatter price rises than the previous one. Medium-term I think there’s a realisation of the need for additional strategies for dealing with rampant bodily injury costs and managing fraudulent behaviour such as the wider use of risk indicative external data.”

Author: Louise Meeson

Source: Insurance Age | 12 Oct 2010

Many businesses back up their data to external hard drives, CDs, tapes and USBs.  This horrifies many IT experts who are acutely aware of the risks that such methods pose.  In a recent study, the Home Office Computing Magazine reported that 77% of companies who test their tape backups have found failures.

Such failures can prove to be catastrophic.  Not only can data restoration be expensive, the time expended to resume operations will prove fatal to many businesses.  93% of businesses that lost data for 10 days or more, filed for bankruptcy within a year.  Many statistics illustrate the risk-laden gamble that is involved when organisations rely on ineffective  storage.  The risk emanates from the fragile nature of such devices, which are inevitably subject to degradation.

What is the solution?

A more cost effective and consistent  method  of protecting data is utilising  a software service which automatically backs up selected company data offsite and is monitored externally by experts.  Piermont Computer Maintenance (PCM) is a Leeds IT firm which specialises in Remote Data Backup.  Their service has averted crisis in situations that otherwise would have been disastrous for the businesses involved.  A local document management company suffered the failure of a hard drive.  The Managing Director estimated that the cost of data retrieval would have escalated to around £10,000 in an incident that he is not sure that his business could have recovered from, had they not been using the PCM Remote Data Backup service.

The small cost of professional backup pales into insignificance when compared with the drama of crucial data loss.  For more information please consult www.pcmbu.eu.