Over the past few weeks, certain areas of Britain have been battered with gale force winds and storms that have left not only homes, but entire towns flooded for days, many even spending Christmas without proper shelter or power. Despite this, 2013 has seen one of the quietest years for home insurers, with claims down a quarter since 2012. Before the recent floods, during the first nine months of the year, there were only 1.2m claims on policies, down 23% compared to the same period during the year before where 1.5m claims were made.
Experts are now predicting that this year will bring a 5% drop in insurance premiums, meaning that there’s a possible (USD $)12.50 saving off the average (USD $)250 cost of building and contents cover. Due to this fall in claims, insurers have enjoyed one of their best years since 1994, which is odd considering the extreme weather conditions that plagued the country both at the beginning and the end of 2013. With blankets of snow in January, record low temperatures in March and the recent storms, it’s surprising that claims have been light.
While the recent flooding did affect around 1,300 homes in the past few weeks, the scale of damage done is dramatically less than that seen during the floods that hit in both 2007 and 2009. With this relatively benign year of weather, discounting recent storms of course, it’s likely that home insurance premiums could drop by at least 5%, as long as claims are still kept down to a minimum throughout the beginning months of 2014 and no extreme weather begins to hit again throughout the country.
However, it would seem that car insurers are having a harder time of it, the storms causing many to become stranded and in need of rescue, the AA stating they rescued 603 cars that were stuck deep in floodwater during Christmas Eve. It’s believed that many are ignoring the warnings being given as they believe that their vehicle can handle it, something that come to find isn’t true. Despite this, as long as no major storms or flooding hits within the next few months, home insurance premiums will be dropping, which is surely good news for everyone.
Are you currently looking to change your home insurance? Worried you might not be covered as well as you thought? Why not taking advantage of this lull in the market and visit us at www.alternativeinsurancebrokers.com to see exactly what is open to you.