Insurance news

What Saga’s data adds to the picture

Anna Thunstrom (pictured), Saga’s head of home insurance, said it can be difficult to know what your rights are as a homeowner or tenant. She added that the financial exposure customers face without adequate cover can be significant, pointing to fines of up to £20,000 for damaging a protected tree, on top of potential civil compensation, legal fees and replacement costs, and noted that legal expenses cover, where held, can fund advice or representation if a dispute cannot be resolved directly with a neighbour.

Source

What’s notable to scientists isn’t just the potential scale of the event, but the speed of the transition. According to Nat Johnson, a meteorologist with NOAA’s geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory, last winter’s conditions were still consistent with a La Niña, the cooler counterpart phase in the same Pacific oscillation cycle. Moving from that baseline to a potentially record-setting El Niño within roughly a year is an unusually rapid shift, and researchers say it isn’t yet clear why this year’s swing has been so pronounced, or what role, if any, climate change is playing in it.

Source

The M/V Vyssos, a dry bulk carrier, was financed by a US$3 million loan from Oceanus Capital SARL, secured by a mortgage over the ship. Oceanus backed that exposure with mortgagees’ interest insurance – MII – from Lloyd’s Insurance Company S.A., for a sum insured of US$3.6 million, set at 120% of the loan. The owner’s separate war risks policy, valued at US$5.8 million, allowed worldwide trading but excluded Ukrainian waters unless underwriters agreed and were paid an extra premium. 

Source

The client profile firms like Thomond serve, self-employed professionals, business owners and private clients with complex, multi-policy needs spanning protection, succession planning and retirement, is among the most commercially valuable in the market, making it a natural target for integrated advisory groups.

Source

To rule out stereotyping, the researchers turned to a dataset of anonymous online negotiations conducted entirely through text chat, with no names, photos, or voices exchanged. A separate group of participants tried to guess the gender of the negotiators from the transcripts alone and did no better than random chance. Yet even in that anonymous setting, women were rated as more trustworthy, fairer, and more likeable than men, with no difference in the financial outcomes of the deal either side walked away with.

Source

David Bailey, Executive Director for Prudential Policy at the PRA, said the regime “will enhance the UK’s competitive edge in insurance,” adding that “ahead of the formal launch in 2027, we are keen to speak to any businesses that could benefit from establishing a UK-based captive.” Sarah Pritchard, deputy chief executive of the FCA, said a competitive option “could benefit UK companies and support wider economic growth,” describing the approach as “pragmatic and proportionate, with appropriate safeguards in place.”

Source

The hire comes as UK household claims reach record levels, adding to the complexity of the property claims Qlaims is built to support, and as regulators sharpen their focus on how that complexity is handled. ABI figures showed the average household claim hit £6,340 in the first quarter of 2026, the highest on record and up 20% on the same period in 2025, while the average domestic subsidence claim rose 9% year on year to £17,820. That followed a record £6.1 billion in UK property insurance payouts across 2025 as a whole, driven by the UK’s hottest summer on record and a run of severe storms.

Source

Where the loss actually happens

The physical risk still sits squarely in transit. Andrew Mitchell, fine art underwriter at Hiscox in London, has told Insurance Business UK that “the main driver of fine art claims is accidental damage,” with roughly half arising specifically while an object is being moved rather than sitting on display. The treaty reflects that directly: it specifies that vibration during transport must be reduced to under 2 millimetres per second, a figure drawn from a 2022 French engineering study that Jeffares argues was never validated as a safe threshold for a specific, degraded 1,000-year-old textile, only as a general benchmark.

Stuart Dean, Director and Head of Signature Claims Services at Criterion Adjusters, echoes that focus on prevention. “When an artefact is genuinely irreplaceable, the focus shifts from indemnity to prevention,” he said. “The real challenge lies in the risk management and planning needed to ensure a loss never occurs, plus a consideration towards the conservation expertise and associated costs in the event of damage. Our experience investigatin claims where things have gone wrong also means we’re often asked to review and challenge transit plans before a journey begins, to assist with the prevention element.”

Source

Marcus Baker, global head of marine at Marsh, said the past few weeks had brought genuine, if cautious, optimism to the market. Premiums had begun falling from their crisis peaks as both sides signalled a willingness to negotiate, although they remained well above pre-conflict levels.

Source

Pirozzolo added that cover can, in principle, also be affected by matters outside a judgment, such as non-disclosure at inception or breach of policy conditions, but said he is not aware of any suggestion of that here. “I have not read the judgment,” he said, “but so far as I am aware, it contains no findings of dishonesty or improper conduct against any of the claimants. Indeed, my understanding is that in assessing Prince Harry’s evidence, Mr Justice Nicklin noted that Associated Newspapers did not allege any dishonesty on his part.”

Source