Hiscox is currently the only insurer ready to take quotes from brokers at the launch of the Flood Re programme. And the fact that
Hiscox brokers are already writing Flood Re business suggests that other insurers’ inability to do so is something brokers are right to be indignant about.
The much anticipated launch of the UK Government-backed scheme to pool flood risk was met with derision by the broker community after it emerged that insurers are offering Flood Re policies via their direct channels at the expense of broker access to the same products. Some insurers are looking at a three-month head start on the intermediaries.
One broker who branded the launch a “nightmare” told
Insurance Business UK he was contacted by his insurer the day before launch and told he wouldn’t be able to quote on Flood Re until July.
But Hiscox said it made getting broker access to Flood Re a priority. “We’ve all known this has been coming for a long time, and while some details were not finalised until the last minute, we had done a lot of preparation,” Ross Dingwall, managing director of the UK broker channel at Hiscox, told
Insurance Business UK.
“The broker channel is about 75% of our business so it’s a very important channel and that’s why we made efforts to get the IT and platforms in place on the broker side,” he said. “It’s actually going to take us a couple more months to get our direct proposition up and running.”
Dingwall said Hiscox brokers have already used the Flood Re facility for about half a dozen risks, so brokers are certainly writing business that has not been written previously.
