“There is little doubt that the FIVE year period stretching from 2008 til 2013 will be remembered as a time of turmoil and great change within the House insurance market in this country. Never was this felt more than in the city of Cork and this article will try to make some sense of how matters got to where they did and how the market resurrected itself in the intervening years. We also hope to show why we now believe the opportunity exists for insurers to develop and steadily grow a household account in the coming years.
Figures produced by the insurance industry clearly show how, in the years leading up to 2008, insurers were transacting business in an unprofitable environment. It would be accepted that, at that time, the policy cover provided by the market was generally excellent and the pricing very low and, in an industry which has always been cyclical, there was little doubt that 2008 represented a major change in direction by the market.
The first sense of this came in early 2008 when the market began to tackle the “Subsidence” issue. For years, the insurance industry had bankrolled households by underpinning foundations and replacing the old clay piping with plastic piping. Their strategy in this regard, almost without exception, involved the exclusion of Subsidence cover for all new business and the application of significant excesses for policies falling due for renewal.
There followed a sustained period of double digit percentage premium increases which persisted through til 2011 and, if that wasn’t enough, a significant portion of house owners had to deal with restrictions in flood insurance cover as the effects of the floods in the city (2009) and Douglas (2010) took hold.
As a result of the foregoing, the landscape of the Cork city house insurance market today is unrecognisable from what it was in 2008. What is also different is the fact that insurers are again profitable and this is why, in our view, the circumstances now exist for prudent insurers to use the experience of the local broker to re-enter the Cork city house market albeit on much different terms than existed in 2008.”
Over to you!
Should you require a house insurance quote today , contact Claire O’Donoghue on 021 427 5347 for an immediate quotation taken from 15 insurers!