on 2:54 AM

One in Five Households Do Not Have Home Contents Insurance Reveals Swinton Insurance

MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM - Nearly a fifth of households in the UK do not have home contents insurance according to a survey by Swinton Insurance.

The UK's leading high street retailer of home insurance surveyed 2,573 online customers and found that 18% do not have contents insurance.

The respondents gave a variety of reasons as to why they do not have cover, which leaves households exposed to large replacement costs if they lose items through theft or damage.

The top four reasons for not having any insurance in place are:

--  Too expensive (45%) --  Haven't got round to it (32%) --  It is not a legal requirement (16%) --  Too complicated (7%)

The average value of a household's home contents is around Pounds Sterling 28,000(i) which is mostly made up of clothes, furniture, gadgets and other valuable possessions. This figure would be likely to increase if a household kept antiques or art collections. However, the total value of home contents can be protected easily by paying a small premium each month.

Swinton offer competitive rates for both building and contents insurance. For the month of May, the average content insurance premium sold was Pounds Sterling 119.94 per annum.

Swinton has offered some tips for evaluating home contents:

--  Do not overlook anything, such as hoovers, mirrors, luggage, musical     instruments, expensive wine, flooring, camping equipment and exercise     equipment, which can be easily forgotten. --  Inform your insurer of any changes to the value of your contents     straight away i.e. if you buy a new TV or bike. --  Do not forget the contents in the garden such as sheds and tools, which     could be expensive to replace. --  Do not over-estimate your contents, as this could result in unnecessary     expensive premiums.

Steve Chelton, Insurance Development Manager at Swinton said, "Although contents insurance isn't compulsory and is seen as non-essential by many, it is still very important to protect your belongings from damage and theft. What seems like a saving now could be very costly in the long run.

(i)Daily Telegraph 02.06.10

About Swinton

--  With 580 branches nationwide Swinton is the UK's largest high street     insurance retailer --  Unlike many other companies in the financial services industry, Swinton     is committed to keeping its branches open for business, and part of the     community --  Swinton provides a one-stop-shop for the insurance and related needs of     its clients, offering home, car, caravan, business, holiday, motorbike     and even classic car insurance --  With a dedicated team of advisors on hand at every branch to search a     panel of insurers to offer quality cover at competitive rates.

Contacts:
SKV Communications
Anoushka Done, Anna Asamoah or Mairead Rodden
0161 838 7770
www.skvcommunications.co.uk/

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on 2:50 AM

Lloyd's estimates World Cup insurance coverage at £6.2bn



world-cup-football

The football World Cup, will be insured to the tune of an estimated £6.2bn when it kicks off on Friday, according to Lloyd’s.

This is broken down into property - £3bn, contingency - £3 bn and liability - £200m.

Only war has prevented a World Cup taking place since the tournament's inception in 1930.

A player at the height of their career and playing in one of the top leagues for their country could be insured for £50m, according to Peter Thompson, underwriter at Beazley.

Assuming there are no pre-existing conditions, £40m of this insures their entire body for sports disability, including accidental death and permanent total disablement, 24 hours a day.

And it's not just their antics on the pitch that people are interested in. Lloyd's added a player's image can make or break their celebrity status and clubs need to insure their reputation as much as their feet to generate lucrative merchandise sales.
Dan Trueman, underwriter at Kiln, estimates a footballer's brand to be worth around £10m.

The stadiums have also been the subject of much scrutiny with major renovations having been carried out on five existing ones, and five new ones being built around South Africa to accommodate the 2.75 million ticket holders.

Brian Oxley, insurance manager for the organising Committee at FIFA, believes that the combined value for these stadiums and training venues amounts to £3.2bn.

But it's not just sport that needs to be considered, with businesses around the world heavily involved. Competitions and offers are springing up everywhere and when it comes to contingency, Chris Nash, active underwriter at Sportscover, said there is a vast range of potential coverage: "Competitions, offers, prizes, sponsorship, broadcast rights; it's impossible to know how many there are, but all companies with these financial implications need coverage.

"When you take this into account along with the number of broadcasters around the world airing the games, I'd probably estimate the whole thing at around £3bn."


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on 11:02 PM

'Absence of postmortem report no ground for rejecting claim'

An insurance company cannot reject a claim on the ground of absence of policyholder's postmortem report, a consumer court has said.

"In the absence of the postmortem report, the (personal accident insurance) claim could not have been repudiated," the Delhi District Consumer Forum, Central has said.

The Forum passed the order on a petition of the wife of a policy holder, who died in a train accident, seeking directions to the National Insurance Company to pay the claim along with compensation for causing harassment.

It noted that the insurance company did not look into the documents provided by Kamlesh, the wife of the deceased, but merely insisted upon the postmortem report.

"The documents placed on the file, were sufficient for the insurance company to believe the case of Kamlesh that her husband died in a train accident.

Therefore, non-passing of the claim so far, is deficiency in service. It has caused not only the financial losses but also harassment and mental agony to the widow of the assured," the forum bench, comprising president B B Chaudhary and member S R Agrawal, said.

The forum directed the insurance company to pay accidental insurance amount of Rs two lakh along with compensation of Rs 15,000 to the widow.

Ashok Kumar Srivastava, the policy holder died in 2004 after he fell from the train. The claim was repudiated by the company as his postmortem report was not submitted.

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on 11:02 PM

Regulators shut banks in Neb., Miss., Ill.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Friday shut down a Nebraska bank that has struggled under the weight of soured loans and drawn scrutiny from federal authorities since early last year. Two small banks in Illinois and Mississippi were also shuttered, boosting the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 81.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over TierOne Bank, based in Lincoln, Neb., with about $2.8 billion in assets. Great Western Bank, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., agreed to acquire the assets and deposits of the failed bank. In addition, the FDIC and Great Western Bank agreed to share losses on $1.9 billion of TierOne Bank's loans and other assets.

The failure of TierOne Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $297.8 million.

Just Friday, TierOne said it had agreed to a new set of rules imposed by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, giving it an additional six weeks to shore up its capital position. The thrift agency had said TierOne "engaged in unsafe or unsound banking practices," carrying too many bad loans on its books and lacking sufficient capital as a cushion against losses.

The bank had negative earnings in 10 of the last 11 quarters.

TierOne suffered from high concentrations of construction, land and commercial real estate loans in markets hit by the real estate bust, including California, Florida and Nevada, according to the thrift regulators.

The bank, established in 1907, had 59 branches in Nebraska, nine in Iowa and one in Kansas.

The FDIC also seized First National Bank, based in Rosedale, Miss., with $60.4 million in assets, and Arcola Homestead Savings Bank in Arcola, Ill., with about $17 million in assets.

Jefferson Bank, based in Fayette, Miss., agreed to acquire the assets and deposits of First National Bank. The FDIC and Jefferson Bank agreed to share losses on $43.5 million of the failed bank's loans and other assets.

The FDIC was unable to find a buyer for Arcola Homestead Savings Bank, and it approved the payout of the institution's insured deposits. The agency said it will mail checks to depositors for their insured funds on Monday.

The failure of First National Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $12.6 million; that of Arcola Homestead is expected to cost $3.2 million.

The closure of Arcola Homestead brought to 12 the number of bank failures this year in Illinois, a state with one of the highest concentrations of bank collapses and where the meltdown in the real estate market brought an avalanche of soured mortgage loans. California, Florida and Georgia also are high on the list of states with concentrated bank failures.

With 81 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures is more than double that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 37 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development.

The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and to be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force, and only three succumbed in 2007.

As losses have mounted on loans made for commercial property and development, the growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of March 31.

The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list jumped to 775 in the first quarter from 702 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter in two years.

A majority of institutions posted profit gains in the January-March quarter. But many small and midsized banks are likely to continue to suffer distress in the coming months and years, especially from soured loans for office buildings and development projects.

The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years.

The agency mandated last year that banks prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund.

Depositors' money -- insured up to $250,000 per account -- is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government.

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