insurancepeople
News
Deeside togrow e-business D
eeside Insurance Brokers, specialising
in motor, home, bike and commercial van business, have launched
Aim4agreatquote.com, using Open GI’s eBroker for Personal Lines. Targets include a number of workflow productivity
Shortage of actuaries for SolvencyII projects
A shortage of actuaries to deal
with Solvency II projects has forced the
government to relax its visa rules, says business and technology staffing firm ReThink Recruitment.
In September the Migration Advisory Committee’s review added actuaries to the government’s skills shortage list, following evidence to the
committee that demand for actuaries as a result of Solvency II had risen by 30-40%.
ReThink says that a lack of candidates with Solvency II modelling experience has meant pay rises of up to 25% over the last 12 months for full-time employees. The company says that actuarial staff at director level can now earn up to £150,000 per year, with staff typically earning bonuses of up to 25%.
22 insurancepeople NOVEMBER 2011
benefits, such as removing any data re-keying.
The e-commerce solution is fully integrated with the back office and Deeside report that the new website is already generating greater volumes of business and providing customers with real-time rates. Simon Hughes, sales
and marketing director, Open GI, comments, “eBroker for Personal Lines serves in excess of 67 million quotations every month and our depth and breadth of experience in delivering this type of solution for personal lines trading places us in a unique position.”
Over 100 firms in membership of AMII
he Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII) reports that in the third quarter of 2011 five new independent healthcare intermediary companies joined AMII, increasing membership to “well over 100 intermediary firms” Andrew Tripp, chairman of the association, says, “AMII continues to go from strength to strength, and our members now account for well in excess of £500m of private medical insurance (PMI) annual premium income in the UK.”
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Unfair dismissal changes unlikely to help small businesses
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AS says that changes to unfair dismissal rules, announced by the Chancellor, George Osborne, recently are unlikely to benefit many small businesses.
He has indicated the government’s intention to increase the length of service needed for an employee to bring a claim for unfair dismissal from one year to two. However DAS believes that statistics show that this would have limited impact on numbers of claims, especially those against small businesses. The company’s legal
advice manager, Rhian Gait-Parker, says, “Small businesses face many challenges in dealing with employment law, but unfair dismissal isn’t likely to be very high on the list. “Unfair dismissal
claims are more likely to be made against bigger firms than other types of claim, and by staff with longer service. Take away the cases that are exempt because they involve a discrimination claim, and the number of small businesses affected is unlikely to be significant at all.”
Simon Hughes
FSAcompensation motives questioned
rofessional indemnity specialists PI Expert have questioned the FSA motives in seeking to be able to award 100% redress for all losses if a rule is breached, even if it is minor or did not contribute to loss. PI Expert believe that the authority might be
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motivated more by a desire to save FSA resources than to protect consumers. Jenny Carter-Vaughan, managing director of PI Expert, says that the FSA would be the net beneficiary if this “draconian” change were successful, and believes that PI premiums would be forced to rise. She adds, “If, as it appears, the FSA’s real motive is to reduce administration costs, it could be that this is actually a back-door method of getting brokers to foot the mounting bill for the investigation of the banking sector’s mis-selling of PPI and creditor insurance. There is no justification for the proposal and we must not let it slip into law through inertia.”
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