My first 12 years were with major insurers & they were fine to work for, especially the second one, Provincial Insurance, now Axa.
When in Cornwall for Provincial I was asked to buy a partnership in an insurance broker, which I did.
Due to retirement of other partners & key staff years before my own retirement was due, we sold the business to a large consolidator & I spent the last 10 years of my career working for them. Fifteen years after we sold, the business is smaller than the one we sold them. Says most of what you need to know about HO politics.
I had a lot of respect for the integrity of our major insurers in the early days. The rise of the direct insurers, many of whom were also the big names we dealt with, changed the whole ethos of the industry from the mid 90’s/early 2,000’s. Focus was solely on price & the short term ‘bottom line’ at the expense of experienced staff exchanged for cheap to employ computer operators who simply did what the computer told them to do, understanding very little about insurance.
Integrity largely went out of the window & instead of working with insurers for the benefit of our clients we seemed to spend far too much of our time fighting them for the benefit of the same clients.
The benefit of retirement is only having to worry now about why my streamers screen keeps freezing or why the internet radio connection occasionally drops out!
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I worked for GRE , not the cheapest, not the highest for commission payments but if you had a claim they treated most people fairly. As someone said , you knew where you stood when dealing with us.
When I was National Accounts Manager on the pensions and Group Risk side I never had a complaint on claims settlement. Started as a Grade A clerk in the motor department and worked my way down form there.
All the direct insurers do is use of of the computer programmes on motor (in particular) that brokers used in the 1980s and offer them direct.
As you say, at some stage integrity went out the window , on the life side, compliance replaced governance and ethics.
Returning to the original thread my advice after all these years is to people with good Naim systems is see a good broker or if you deal direct don’t scrimp on cover . You really don’t want your LP12 replaced by a Rega RP3
Buying a Dacia is not the same as buying a Nissan, buying a Toyota is not the same as buying a Lexus .
Interesting thread
Can you get insurance just for the hifi and not linked to other contents or anything else?
We are being farmed. End of.
Probably through an insurance broker…though i have never tried.
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