Posted by News from ABP on 22/1/10:
Fortis (Insurance, UK) has announced the full launch of Fleet Guard to its brokers, the latest edition to its expanding commercial portfolio. After a successful pilot last year with 670 of its intermediaries, broker feedback has been a key element in the development of the product, enabling

Fortis to offer a competitive proposition in terms of both price and quality.
Incorporating Fortis’ expertise as the third largest car insurer in the UK* the new product is designed for businesses with between 3 and 50 vehicles (made up of both private cars and commercial vehicles up to 7.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight) and recognises the individual risk characteristics, claim frequency and claim costs.

The new product has a maximum legal claims limit of up to £100,000 for non-fault claims, including like for like replacement vehicle and physiotherapy following an accident. Additional competitive features include:

Full EU and EEA cover;

Statement of fact - no proposal form;

Occasional Business Use cover available for employees using their own vehicles on the customers’ business**;

UK based dedicated contact points backed by Fortis’ award-winning 24-hour claims service.
Fleet Guard also allows brokers to transact business more easily, with the facility to generate cover notes online, if required, allowing swift access to documentation.

Fleet Guard pilot broker, Andrew Wallace Managing Director of Direct Fleet Insurance Services comments: “We find the cover offered by Fortis to be one of the best in the market and they are prepared to compete for the better risks. This enables us to go after quality fleets in the knowledge that we have a good chance of picking up the business. Once the fleet is on risk, the documentation is produced in a timely and efficient manner. They [Fortis] are a very good addition to the market”.

Andrew Rigby, Director, Rigby Insurance also piloted the new Fortis product: “The Fortis Fleet Guard product provides complete piece of mind for my clients. Not only is the policy flexible and competitive, it is backed up with excellent claims service. The electronic policy documentation makes the product even more appealing to me as a broker, making adjustments feel almost instantaneous compared with other insurers in the market. I would have no hesitation in recommending this product.”

Adam Clarke, Underwriting Director, Fortis comments: “I have been delighted with the feedback from brokers on the pilot of our new fleet proposition and am pleased to announce the much anticipated full launch. At Fortis, we have been making significant progress in the implementation of our commercial strategy through increasing the depth and breadth of our proposition for our brokers.

Fleet Guard is another example of our commitment and approach, which we believe will continue to add value to our brokers and customers.”

The implementation of Fortis’ commercial lines strategy is already delivering significant growth. In the 2009 interim results (01 January to 30 June 2009), the company reported a year on year growth in commercial lines Gross Written Premium of 40 per cent to £53.6 million.

* Based on number of cars insured, source: EMB analysis of FSA Returns 2008 (published August 2009). The addition of the Tesco Bank and Toyota GB motor book in 2010, will move Fortis to second largest car insurer in the UK.
** subject to exposure information and charge.

Posted by News from ABP on 25/1/10:
David Murby held the positions of Chief Operating Officer, Commercial Director and Product Development Director at Audatex (UK) Ltd, befor eleaving to join Experiam as head of its Automotive Division.
He now runs his own business - Numina Consulting - and writes an occasional blog about the UK general insurance industry

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I’ve seen that there is a petition on the Number 10 web site to introduce anti-steering legislation to the UK.
Have you signed it?
I haven’t, I don’t intend to and here’s why; I really don’t think it’s a good idea.

At face value the idea that an insurance company cannot ‘steer’ their policyholders to a preferred repair facility seems fair enough.

However, my belief is that directing a driver to an approved repairer is good for the policyholder, good for the insurer and good for the repairer.

Anyone considering legislation is going to put the consumers’ interests first and I think there’s a strong case for approved repairer networks from the consumer’s perspective.
It’s pretty obvious that this is good for the insurer but also, odd that this may seem, I actually think its good for the repairers.

I’m most definitely not saying that the UK implementation of ‘steering’ is perfect in its implementation, but the concept is good for the industry as a whole.

Let’s look at the policyholder.

Most people when they have an accident have no real idea of what to do with their car.
Vehicles are complicated these days (we all know this in the industry but even the general public get it) and the majority of people worry about the reliability of the repairer that they are going to take their car to.
OK, so PAS125 should be a real step forward in giving confidence to the driver but fundamentally they will have much more confidence in a repairer that has been recommended by the insurer.
From the policyholder’s perspective, being told where to go by the insurer makes life so much simpler and gives greater confidence.
Policyholders are going to continue to prefer approved repair networks.

I would like to think that it’s fairly obvious that ‘steering’ is good for insurers as it makes the claims management simpler, reducing operating costs, and allows them to make use of their buying power, reducing claims costs.

All this makes the overall charges to the insurer lower. Obviously this improves their profitability but, since insurance companies have only made a technical underwriting profit twice since 1985 (and both of those profits are very low percentages) the argument would be that these savings are passed back to the policyholder in lower premiums as the insurers continue to compete harder for business.
This would be another plus for the consumer that the legislators will be considering.

Here’s an interesting point from the US where, in some states, anti-steering legislation is already in place.
In those states many insurers, prohibited from steering to approved repair facilities have implemented approved assessment facilities.
They ask their policyholder to go to these facilities to have the damage assessed, clearly stating that there is no obligation to have the vehicle repaired at this site and that the policyholder has free choice to have the vehicle repaired anywhere.
The conversion rates at the approved assessment facilities from assessment to actual repair is, unsurprisingly, incredibly high and the repairer gets vast amounts of work from the policyholders of those insurers; approved repair networks by other means.

Finally, lets look at the repairers, the ones whom the anti-steering legislation is truly supposed to benefit; forget the public statements of consumer choice, this is about bodyshop profitability.

Firstly lets consider the fact that in the UK the policyholder has always had the right to take a vehicle to a repair facility of their own choice.
Many people may not know of this right but often those who are aware do not exercise it because the benefits of going via the insurer approved repair programme are much greater than going the independent route.
How many bodyshops are continually advertising and pushing this consumer choice, not many.

Here’s the downside for the repairers; loss of the approved repair network approach is going to mean competing directly with every other repairer in your area.

Again PAS125 and vehicle manufacturer approvals are going to help give confidence to the policyholders but the costs of attracting business will be huge.

Most UK repairers do not have this money to spare but even if they did it’s not something they’re good at (they don’t need to be under the approved repair network process) and the small independents are always going to lose out to the vehicle manufacturer approved site under this scheme and the also to the bodyshop groups with their greater advertising spend capability.
This requirement to advertise will put hourly rates up but not profitability as all the additional revenue goes to acquiring business.

Costs to insurers will go up and premiums will increase with no profitability gain for insurers.
Total loss rates will climb even higher driven by the increased hourly rates and there will be less work for bodyshops.
Policyholders will pay more for the privilege of a ‘service’ they don’t want and we can all imagine the self-righteous tabloid headlines about the cost of insuring a car.

The legislators will never go for it.

Now, before every repairer who’s signed up for the petition starts to think I’m biased or a lunatic, let me say that I don’t think the current model is working well.

Profitability for the UK vehicle repair industry as a whole is too low.

This is especially true with the huge level of investment required to become a professional quality repairer.
The model is not working, repairers are going out of business and if we don’t fix something we will have a massive capacity issue and the problems across the industry that are associated with this.

We have to improve the model, make insurance profitable and vehicle repair profitable.

Anti-steering legislation is not the answer.

Posted by News from ABP on 25/1/10:
Copart UK is delighted to announce its appointment to provide salvage services to Allianz Insurance, continuing the partnership previously enjoyed between the insurer and D Hales Ltd.

The announcement follows the purchase of D Hales Ltd by Copart UK on Friday 22nd January.

Les Elliott, Motor Salvage Controller at Allianz Insurance commented:
“Copart has demonstrated that it’s operating at business as usual and we are confident that we will receive the same level of service that we enjoyed for many years with D Hales Ltd.
We look forward to building our relationship with them into the future.”

Nigel Paget, Managing Director of Copart UK said
“We are delighted that Allianz have chosen to enter into this partnership directly with Copart.
There are strong business synergies between D Hales Ltd and Copart which has given Allianz the confidence to reach this decision.
It is a testimony to the people in both D Hales Ltd and Copart and we are all very excited about this relationship and the opportunities it will bring to both our businesses”.

Copart completed the acquisition of D Hales Limited to create a true national footprint of wholly
owned and operated salvage facilities

Posted by News from ABP on 26/1/10:
The winners of the 2010 BusinessCar Awards have been selected by the readers of BusinessCar magazine, website and email newsletters - with no influence from a panel of judges.

The results can be seen as a fair and accurate portrayal of which companies are highly regarded by the fleet community as they are chosen by the people whose firms depend on using top-quality products, technology and services on a daily basis.

Dave Bartlett, head of accident management for The AA, said:
“Throughout 2009, The AA has invested heavily in its accident management function.
Following extensive research with our customers, we launched our new operational accident management system [Invictus] and our online customer portal [Invictus Online] in April 2009.
This has provided improved customer service and enhanced efficiency.

“We believe that proactively minimising our customers’ vehicle downtime, providing a secure repair network and delivering cost certainty and control are key to our effective accident management service.
This ethos runs throughout The AA’s service and this is the approach that has reduced our customer claims costs and provided them with mutually acceptable business results.

“Seamlessly interlinking our accident management, risk management and roadside assistance products has enabled us to provide our customers with both meaningful and consultative management information.”

Posted by News from ABP on 25/1/10:
Further to my communication of 22nd December 2009 announcing PPG’s paint material price adjustment, the variable nature of paint materials price changes by the leading brands has led to questions regarding our process for implementing these changes in our system.

The following outlines our process going forward:

o When the paint manufacturers announce price changes, we then request detailed data supporting this from the manufacturers.

o On receipt of this detailed data we then forward to AZT for calculation and tabulation for all relevant paint operations and paint types.

o Once completed this is then returned to Audatex for compilation and formatting of the relevant paint tables to reflect market usage. A calculation is then made to indicate a % adjustment for communication to the market. The relevant tables and data are then prepared for release in the system.

o The typical processing time for all of the above activities is three weeks from receipt of the detailed data from the paint manufacturers.

As a commitment to our customers, for the following brands only, PPG, Nexa Autocolor, Sikkens, Standox, Spies Hecker, Dupont, 3M, Glasurit, R-M, we will release pricing table updates either on their effective date of change or within three weeks following receipt of the detailed data from the paint manufacturers if after the effective date. The exception to this is where multiple market changes are to be made within the same 30 day period, where for the
sake of efficiency for all we will amalgamate these changes into one release.

Current Status:

o The change for PPG price increases was reflected in AudaEnterpriseGold, on 1st January 2010

o We are in receipt of the relevant data from Akzo Nobel and therefore we will implement the necessary paint price table adjustment for Sikkens in AudaEnterpriseGold on 1st February 2010, hence matching their effective date.

o For the remaining six brands that have announced proposed changes, on the proviso that we receive the detailed data in time, under our amalgamated 30 day provision we will make
a further system update on Monday 1st March 2010.

We thank all our customers, colleagues and partners for their ongoing support.

Adrian Ritchie
Commercial Director