Our office will be closed over the Christmas/New Year period from Monday 26 December 2011, resuming Tuesday 3 January 2012.
For claims issues, Insurer’s phone numbers are as follows:
Allianz : 1300 300 573
CGU : 1300 657 119
Vero : 1300 888 073
National Transport Insurance : 1800 684 669
The Staff at Berkrey Insurance Consultants would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Christmas holidays are a special time when families and friends come together to celebrate the season. It is also the time of year where families and friends are most generous and practice the tradition of gift giving. It should be a joyous and happy time for all of us.
Unfortunately for us, home burglars view the holiday season a little differently. For them, it is a time of opportunity to burglarise your home for cash, credit cards, and all the new gifts of small electronics, computers, jewellery, and easily sold valuables.
Here are a few tips of what they look for when shopping for a house to burglarise. These tips will help you enjoy the holidays without incident.
Queensland households have seen the highest increase in insurance premiums this year, according to Canstar Cannex’s annual rating of home and contents policies.
The financial research company analysed 38 insurers and 74 policies and obtained over 16,000 individual quotes across the six states to rate companies.
It says the average home and contents premium increased 12% in Queensland, 7.4% in NSW, 5% in Tasmania, 4.9% in SA, 4.7% in WA and 4% in Victoria.
Nationally, 62% of policies have had price increases of no more than 10%, but 31% of Queensland policies have increased by more than 20%. In flood-affected areas, a regional postcode has seen increases of up to 41% while premiums have risen up to 36% for a Brisbane postcode.
Canstar Cannex studied flood coverage this year and found 92% of policies now cover flooding caused by rainwater runoff, 52% cover flash and riverine flooding, 29% tidal flooding and 16% seawater flooding.
It says that for building-only insurance, ANZ and Commonwealth Bank are “standouts for the value they offer consumers across the country”.
Australian Unity and Westpac again top the list for contents insurance.
For home and contents combined, Australian Unity and Commonwealth Bank are top, with Australian Unity very strong in Queensland and WA and Commonwealth dominating in Victoria, SA and Tasmania.
New market entrant Coles Home Insurance topped three categories in NSW – building-only, home and contents and contents only.
Canstar Cannex Research Manager Chris Groth told insuranceNEWS.com.au he can understand how consumers find it hard to compare policies, and many “might not find the energy or motivation to start doing it”.
He says this year some insurers have tried to make policies easier to understand by including a one-page explanation of important information within their product disclosure statements.
Source: John Heath – InsuranceNewsAustralia.com
THE COMMUNITIES AND societies of Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Japan would have been a lot worse if they had not had insurance.
“It’s not a question of belief – the evidence is clear,” according to Lord Levene, chairman of Lloyd’s. “If you look at the effects of the recent floods here in Australia, approximately 85% of policies in the Queensland floods of February 2010 and, again, more recently in the summer of 2010/2011, responded to the event.
“Given the impact of the Chilean earthquake on the country’s industries, communications and infrastructure I was pleased at how swiftly we all got co-ordinated on the ground, ensuring claims were paid as quickly as possible.
“Compare Chile and Japan with the quake in Haiti, and you have your answer,” Lord Levene told Insurancenewsaustralia.com.
He agreed it would have been utterly impossible for the national economies’ and populations’ well-being and recovery if there was not a free-market insurance industry.
“And that’s why, throughout my visit, I’ve been trying to explain the benefits of a commercial insurance industry.
“Insurance and reinsurance is there to help smooth out the losses to business, not to drive up the cost of insurance and the cost of living for everyone.
“The free-market insurance industry is an absolute bedrock of commercial and civil continuity.
“You only have to look at the slow pace of reconstruction in Japan to see how impaired recovery can become where levels of private insurance are inadequate,” he told INAcom.
source: John Heath – InsuranceNewsAustralia.com
Insurance “gaps” in coastal regions could continue to widen if the Federal Government Climate Change Commission’s rising sea-level predictions become a reality.
The report says that since the late 1800s sea levels have risen 20cm and that continued climate change impacts could see a further 20cm rise by 2050, which would more than double the risk of coastal flooding.
An IAG spokesman says the insurer has done its own research on climate change. But he was unable to say what impact these sea-level predictions would have on the insurance gaps for threatened coastal properties.
“We welcome the public attention these issues are receiving,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.
The commission report says sea-level rises could affect a large number of residents and businesses located close to the coast.
“The rate at which sea levels will rise through this century is a critical factor in determining the degree of exposure to risk,” the climate commission report says.
It says these rises could pose a risk to human settlements and infrastructure in low-lying coastal areas, leading to erosion of sandy beaches and soft coastlines.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has also used the report to garner support for the debate over a proposed carbon tax.
She says the results of the commission’s findings have strengthened her determination to act now and make sure big polluters pay.
This latest report also comes as the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) predicts the “final curtain call” for the La Niña climate pattern, which is returning to a more neutral situation.
BOM Climate Prediction Services Manager Andrew Watkins says this season’s La Niña will go down in history as one of the strongest and wettest in living memory.
“The outlook for winter is for conditions to stay neutral,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “Over the coming months changes in the Pacific Ocean will give a clearer picture of the likely conditions for the coming spring and summer, but at this stage it’s a waiting game.”
source: John Heath – InsuranceNewsAustralia.com
If you own a Toyota or Isuzu truck then chances are you are more likely to have it knocked off, according to new figures
More than 580 Toyota trucks and 215 Isuzu heavy vehicles were stolen last year, according to the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council (NMVTRC) figures.
NMVTRC Executive Director Ray Carroll is urging drivers to lock their vehicles even if they’re stepping away from them for only a couple of minutes.
“They need to be aware that theft takes place,” Carroll says.
“People who don’t experience a theft after driving for many years may well become complacent about the security of their truck and load.
”They need to increase their awareness, particularly with some of the larger prime mover trucks where it’s preferable to keep the engine idling when you’re not actually in the truck.”
Melbourne’s north-western industrial area, Hume City, is Victoria’s top place for thieves stealing trucks, where 19 vehicles were snatched last year.
And it seems that thieves prefer to steal them later in the afternoon between 4pm and 8pm.
“One of the major reasons why vehicles are stolen from the Hume area is that it has a lot of warehouses and trucking businesses. It’s an opportunity and thieves gravitate where there’s an opportunity where trucks are parked and stored,” Carroll says.
Most thieves steal the trucks because of the cargo and later dump the vehicles, he says.
“Some of the large prime movers that aren’t found are stolen for cannibalisation for parts which are put back into the black market. The economic motive for stealing vehicles hasn’t declined at all.
Isuzu marketing manager Jeff Birdseye says Isuzu trucks are stolen because they are the top selling and most popular brand.
“We’ve been in the market for over 22 years and there’s a lot more Isuzu trucks out there than any other brand on Australian roads,” Birdseye says.
“I would say they are being stolen in direct proportion to the number of sales because of the competitors and I would also suggest that most of those trucks would be much older models than we are currently selling.”
Source: Australian Transport News Magazine
The tornado that tore through North Auckland early this week left one person dead and insurers still assessing the damage.
The unexpected twister sent several badly injured people to hospital, tore the roof from a shopping mall, took rooves from smaller building and some houses and blew cars and vans upside down.
However, insurers were still assessing property, motor vehicle and other personal lines damage late yesterday.
Early estimates of damage were in the low millions with insured loss below that.
The tornado was recorded at reaching a speed of 200kph in its 5km path before clearing the city after its 5 minutes blow.
New Zealand has about 20 tornadoes a year but seldom as strong as the latest.
source: John Heath – InsuranceNewsAustralia.com
AUSTRALIAN AIRPORTS, aircraft, passengers and workers are direly exposed to terrorist attacks and airport insurers face enormous exposure from the consequences.
This message was delivered to a conference of airport operators, airline executives and airline service providers by Roger Henning of Homeland Securities in Australia in Adelaide.
To airport insurers, Mr Henning posed questions starting with: “Is the insurance industry interested in learning how to better mitigate risk and eliminate reliance on entrenched stove pipe/silo security at the few Australian airports with security?
“Does a tick or verification suffice to confirm a security assessment and revised security audit have been implemented and recommendations actioned, in this changing industry?
“Are insurers complicit if no verification of mitigation strategies has been undertaken?
“Do insurers ever require peer secondary audits of airport security to confirm improvements have been made?
“Does any insurer enforce evacuation and crisis management exercises at Australian terminals?”
Mr Henning said that compliance only met minimum standards in comparing what was needed in Australia and what had caused terrorist attacks and consequent disaster such as at Moscow airport recently.
He said: “Spin, complacency, cost cutting, a policy of airports implementing only the bare minimum in AVSEC requirements and a lack of interest in security operations, is evident.”
Major airports were designated by the Australian Government as “places of mass gathering” – dangerous places – requiring much higher levels of security.
The replacement value of infrastructure at Australia’s major airports was more than $21 billion.
There were no bollards or fences to stop cars crashing inside terminals. Curb-side uniformed security was slack.
Hundreds of unknown, unlicensed, illegal taxi drivers were on airports daily and no one really knew who was travelling on e-tickets booked online.
The major breach in tarmac safety and security constituted a national security risk.
Tarmac risks to the safety and security of airport workers, airline crews, passengers and visitors is of great concern to the TWU and associated aviation industry unions.
source: John Heath – InsuranceNewsAustralia.com
Fatal crashes involving heavy vehicles in Australia decreased over the 12 month period ending
June 2010 where 258 people died from 212 crashes involving heavy trucks or buses.
Whilst the trend over recent months is downward, the comparable period for the previous year spiked upward by 15%. Details of the national articulated / heavy rigid / bus sectors include: - articulated vehicles were involved in 130 crashes resulting in 160 deaths, - heavy rigid trucks were involved in 64 crashes resulting in 79 deaths - 24 deaths from 21 crashes involving buses. Fatal crashes involving articulated trucks: - increased by 15 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier, - decreased by an average of 4.1 per cent per year over the three years to June 2010. Fatal crashes involving heavy rigid trucks: - decreased by 31.2 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier, - decreased by an average of 3.1 per cent per year over the three years to June 2010.
Source : Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) . For more information, see the BITRE website at www.bitre.gov.au
Australia’s General Insurance has made a first – a $250,000 donation to legal aid for insured flood victims – in Queensland.
Such a financial assist was not made even after the national financial screw-up by HIH, the hail storms in Sydney and Perth nor the Victorian bushfires in 2009.
In a significant gesture, the Insurance Council of Australia said it will provide $250,000 to Queensland Legal Aid to ensure the facility is able to provide appropriate assistance to policyholders affected by the flooding in Queensland.
Rob Whelan, ICA CEO broke the news just after Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten issued a media release trumpeting: “Insurance industry embraces consumer changes on flood insurance.”
Mr Shorten said the 3rd meeting between the Federal Government and the Board of ICA had “resulted in clear wins for consumers and agreement between the Gillard Government and the insurance industry for further discussions on reform of flood related insurance.
“The government agreed with the ICA to develop a mandatory definition of ‘flood’ to be incorporated into the Insurance Contracts Act” and a plain-English, 1-page summary statement to help ensure consumers are aware of what their insurance policies cover.
Mr Shorten’s and the ICA’s statements followed a report by an independent hydrologist panel appointed by ICA on behalf of the industry into the flooding of Toowoomba.
Mr Whelan cautioned that the industry understood that not all policyholders would be covered for the recent floods in Queensland.
If policyholders disagreed with the decision from their insurer they were able to access internal dispute resolution processes.
“The funding from the industry is aimed at providing additional resources for Queensland Legal Aid to assist policyholders,” Rob Whelan said.
source: John Heath – InsuranceNewsAustralia.com
