A chance for all bankrupts to change your life - Your help needed!

4$£&*(£$&*(!

Ineedaname wrote: »

I still don't understand the 'risk' though. We are more likely to continue to pay instalments, no more likely to make a claim than any other insured person and what does it matter for contents insurance what our occupation was in years gone by?

By "date that bankruptcy spent" do they mean date of discharge or time period debt was accrued?

I still think a BIG issue is the one over whether anyone in the household has ever been BR. If it's not the insured then where is the additional risk?

You could do me a really huge favour here - ask them.

feeedback@budgetinsurance.com

My suggestion would be use your own language, don't worry about writing fancy letters. It doesn't have to be long, perhaps to say you're aware about a letter going in to them today about how bankrupts are treated, you have seen the reply on this forum, you want to know what the risk is.

Then if we have 100 other INAN equivalents doing this, suddenly Budget Insurance is talking about us and this forum. They'll then see we are taking this up with the ABI, with the soon-to-be FCA, we're talking to insurers, we are co-ordinated, oops maybe they should do something about this.

So here's what I'll do. For every response I get, I'll post the email address that came with it. If you want to comment straight to them please do, use this thread as leverage and point them to it, let's really get some serious campaigning started.

Ineedaname

Budget Insurance emailed and I've sent you a copy via PM rather than clog this thread up with duplicate comments.

dojoman

Ineedaname wrote: »

I still don't understand the 'risk' though. We are more likely to continue to pay instalments, no more likely to make a claim than any other insured person and what does it matter for contents insurance what our occupation was in years gone by?

By "date that bankruptcy spent" do they mean date of discharge or time period debt was accrued?

I still think a BIG issue is the one over whether anyone in the household has ever been BR. If it's not the insured then where is the additional risk?

I know what you are saying INAN, but you are not insuring an individual but the contents of the whole property, unless of course you live on your own.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

This is a good reply from Magnet - [EMAIL="info@magnetinsurance.co.uk"]info@magnetinsurance.co.uk[/EMAIL] :

Many thanks for your email attachment concerning the stance taken by Insurers on the issue of bankruptcy.

You raise interesting points, much of which we as an online insurance intermediary have been considering because we believe this represents a huge business opportunity for us, particularly on the price comparison sites. We would like to be in a position to write business for previous bankrupts, albeit within certain more defined acceptance criteria but this is an ongoing discussion and educational process we need to have.

As far as I understand, the bankruptcy question is an underwriting factor opposed to purely a credit rating question for monthly instalments. The premise is that those who have been declared bankrupt represent a higher ‘moral hazard’ to Insurers but this of course doesn’t take into account the individual circumstances but rather applies a ‘blanket’ approach, much in the same way that females get cheaper insurance than males (although the EU are passing legislation to outlaw this).

I have passed your letter onto our Household Underwriters at Lloyds of London for their specific comments and will revert over the next couple of weeks (I’m on holiday next week but would like to follow this through).

4$£&*(£$&*(!

Marks and Spencer say:

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Regarding bankruptcy on the Marks and Spencer Policy we would be happy to accept providing:[/FONT]

1. [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]the proposer has not been bankrupt in the last 18 months[/FONT]
2. [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]the bankruptcy has been discharged[/FONT]
3. [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]the proposer is not self employed.[/FONT]

Pretty straightforward to me, I'm adding them to the bankrupt friendly insurance list. I have emailed back asking how they are going to work with the price comparison sites so people answering 'yes' to the bankruptcy question have some way of getting around this (or the comparison site question needs to be reworded).

4$£&*(£$&*(!

I get the impression the ABI is trying to ignore me give their lack of response to two emails sent, the earliest was around a month ago. So to be safe, I've sent the following email:

Mr Thoresen,

I have tried to send this email via Debra Marsh but have not received any confirmation this matter is being looked into; I am not sure if you have received the email so please accept my apologies if you have already had sight of this.

Additionally, since I wrote the attached letter I have been in contact with a number of brokers, intermediaries and underwriters. There does appear to be a common theme forming where bankruptcy is not generally seen as a risk beyond between 12 months and 24 months depending on the company; therefore it may be entirely beneficial for a common approach to be formulated so all companies are singing off the same hymn sheet so to speak. This way bankrupts and their families will not face problems in the future, and brokers/price comparison websites can clearly indicate bankruptcy only needs to be declared during this period.

AXA and its subsidiaries confirm bankruptcy is not an issue so long as:
1) the proposer has not been bankrupt in the last 18 months
2) the bankruptcy has been discharged
3) the proposer is not self employed.

Endsleigh advise they only need to know:
Have you in the last 12 months been declared bankrupt or entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA)?
Have you in the last 12 months had 2 or more unsatisfied County Court Judgments (CCJs), or any other judgment in relation to debt, against you?
Have you in the last 2 years had more than 3 unsatisfied County Court Judgments or any other judgment(s) in relation to debt against you?
Endsleigh only consider these as payment risks and not moral risks.

Magnet Insurance are dealing with Lloyds of London to discuss this matter as they feel it is something the industry needs to address. They believe price comparison websites not returning quotes for them due to the bankruptcy question represents a 'huge business opportunity' for them and they would like a more defined acceptance criteria.

Vidia Baines of Brit Insurance states careful consideration needs to be put into place for measures that are both effective and fair; and following talks with Brit they are keen to see how the ABI intends to lead on this.

I hope this gives you and the Board a further understanding in relation to my attached letter, and I look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime I aim to continue dialogues with individual companies to gather evidence of companies within the industry.


This email has gone to the entire ABI board, their details are here http://www.abi.org.uk/About_The_ABI/Board_Members/The_ABI_Board.aspx for anyone interested. As ever, I'll post replies back here. (Update - board members emails bounced back, but it got through to the director general. If I still get no responses I'll pursue the board members through the other companies they sit with).

4$£&*(£$&*(!

'Renew' insurance (also representing Likewise, Insure and Insure Pink) state they are in discussion with their panel of insurers and may be able to give me further info by phone, I have asked them for a direct line to discuss this.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

'Renew' update:

In relation to your enquiry, we are currently in conversation with all of our panel of insures with regards to a standard time frame with relation to bankruptcy's. Having checked online via Go compare when ticking yes to the question we are not the only broker that doesn't run, however over the phone we will always refer to the individual insurers and are currently looking into the situation to see whether a common thread can be found with all the insurers on our panel to allow us to offer quotes online. Please don't hesitate to contact us if there is anything further we can do.

My response:

Thank you for updating me again. You are quite right that many other brokers do not run on GoCompare and other price comparison websites; so far I have entered discussions with 32 other companies and intermediaries in a similar position. It would appear there is a common theme that brokers, intermediaries and underwriters stop considering bankruptcy as a moral risk between 12 and 24 months. Some, including Endsleigh, do not consider bankruptcy a moral risk at all and only refer to a payment risk if the purchaser opts to pay by installments.

The director general of the ABI, Otto Thoresen (otto.thoresen@abi.co.uk) is aware of these issues and I am trying to secure a cut off point beyond which the industry will not require bankruptcy to be declared. It would be very helpful if, during your work on this, you could raise matters with the ABI and your panel of insurers in addition to the comparison sites as this problem is losing you business as things stand.

Thank you for your continued support, I look forward to learning how you progress. Companies who do disregard bankruptcy after a certain period are being positively publicised by me on Martin Lewis' MoneySavingExpert.com forums in the bankruptcy area (thread for bankrupt friendly home insurers). This again may increase business.


(NB - fortunately only Asda and Renew have said it so far, but the comments about being able to call for a quote is really disingenuous. Imagine with one of my examples of 51 insurers refusing to quote and having to make a phone call to each one of them to get a quote.)

Ineedaname

dojoman wrote: »

I know what you are saying INAN, but you are not insuring an individual but the contents of the whole property, unless of course you live on your own.

As CS is finding out though, there is generally no moral risk, only a payments risk. So if the proposer has never been BR the payments risk doesn't scan...

dojoman

Ineedaname wrote: »

As CS is finding out though, there is generally no moral risk, only a payments risk. So if the proposer has never been BR the payments risk doesn't scan...

I never said it was a moral risk did I? All I said, and I stand by this, is that you are not insuring the person, but the contents of the property. And to be honest I don`t buy the payments risk, if you don`t keep up your premiums then the insurance will not be valid, so where is the risk in that?