How common is it for a single home & contents insurance policy to have two underwriters?

EnquiringMind33

I'm admittedly ignorant about the way home insurance works, having never had to claim until recently. My home buildings & contents policy (bought as a single policy with one policy number, under the name of the well-known company I bought it from) turns out to have separate underwriters for each half, which struck me as a little odd (it's in the small print), but I assumed it was perhaps usual. They do operate under the policy's brand name, but on separate contact numbers and usually identify themselves as acting on behalf of the main name. Occasionally it introduces a procedural complication, usually fairly minor.
How common is this split underwriter type of situation?

Annemos

I had this with SAGA back in 2018. And I did not realise what the implication could be. 

I then had a Subsidence Claim and fortunately, ..... (the only thing that was fortunate considering it was a Subsidence Claim!)......  Only my Building was damaged. So I only had to have the one Claim and the One Loss Adjuster etc, through one Insurance Company. 


Had any of my Contents also been damaged, I would have had to open up a Second Claim with a Second Loss Adjuster, through a Second Insurance Company. 

Having the one Claim was bad enough, let alone the thought of having to go through 2 claims.   


I also imagine that this might cause 2 claims to be entered in "The Claims and Underwriting Exchange Database (CUE)", which is not a great thing to happen. 


We live and learn with Insurance. But I would certainly NEVER allow the splitting of the Buildings and Contents again, for Insurance Purposes. 

I am not inside the Industry, but I imagine they do a mix-and-match to obtain a lower Premium for a Homeowner which looks good. 


(Side note... my claim was handled by one of the very big Loss Adjusting Companies and the Claim Lady had not really focused in on this issue before. She said that her Company was involved in the setting up policies where the Buildings and Contents are routinely split between 2 Underwriters.) 

DullGreyGuy

EnquiringMind33 said:

I'm admittedly ignorant about the way home insurance works, having never had to claim until recently. My home buildings & contents policy (bought as a single policy with one policy number, under the name of the well-known company I bought it from) turns out to have separate underwriters for each half, which struck me as a little odd (it's in the small print), but I assumed it was perhaps usual. They do operate under the policy's brand name, but on separate contact numbers and usually identify themselves as acting on behalf of the main name. Occasionally it introduces a procedural complication, usually fairly minor.
How common is this split underwriter type of situation?

Would really need to name names to be able to say and its not clear if you are saying the Buildings is Aviva and the Contents is Allianz or if you saying both are talking a 50/50 line on both sections?

Having multiple underwriters is common, there are many more providers of Buildings and Contents than there are of Legal Expenses or Home Emergency but it tends to be these secondary sections rather than splitting the Building and Contents. 

There are many concepts in insurance that the average person doesn't know about...

Delegated Authority - some insurers will allow others (brokers and other intermediaries) to write business "on their paper", up to certain limits/within various bounds. This can also extend to claim handling as well as underwriting. The insurer takes the ultimate risk but arent involved in the day to day

Consortium - a group of insurers decide to join together and write business as a collective, normally one will lead the writing of future business but it can be multiple, each insurer takes a set percentage of each policy. A consortium can then delegate their authority as above. Each of the insurers are on the hook for their % 

Reinsurance - only really for completeness but an alternative to a consortium is RI where an insurer passes off X% to another insurer. The key difference here is the insurer is on the hook for 100% of your losses but then can recover X% from the reinsurer. 

I wouldn't see a standard broker doing a split policy but a company with DUA may well, likewise if it's split across the sections rather than between them then it looks like a consortium setup. In both cases you'd normally only deal with the Coverholder (the firm with the DUA) or the Consortium Lead, the fact there are other firms behind the scenes contributing is invisible generally. 

Annemos

Here is what mine looked like with SAGA in 2018. This is from    "The Policy Schedule"

"Policy numbers:
Buildings B17/DI060xxxx     
Contents B17/LA69xxxx"


"The insurer of your Buildings cover: UK General Insurance Ltd on behalf of Great Lakes Reinsurance (UK) SE, and arranged by Ryan Direct Group Limited."

" The insurer of your Contents cover: Legal & General Insurance Limited"


I believe that one was a complete separation. 


Edit: I also just checked. There were also different phone numbers to call for Buildings and Contents Claims. 

And two excesses would apply.