Modern Insurance Magazine Issue 60

ASSOCIATIONS ASSEMBLE
Sue Brown
Title: Chair
Association: Motor Accident Solicitors Society
(MASS)
Transparency
with E-Scooter
Regulations
E-scooter regulations are still months,
or even years, away. Appearing before
the Transport Select Committee recently,
Transport Minister Jesse Norman admitted
that proposals are still a long way off,
adding that this will also be preceded by
a consultation process. This news will be
hugely disappointing for anyone concerned
about the impact of e-scooters on health
and the general public.
With over 2,000 people injured by e-scooters, including
some deaths, there’s an ever-growing need to just get
on with it. As one Committee member noted, the UK
is the last major country in Europe to bring forward a
regulatory framework.
The Motor Insurers’ Bureau also believe that accidents
with cars and uninsured e-scooters add 3% or 4% to
the cost of motor insurance premiums. With the details
having not been published, any scrutiny can only be
a rough estimate. However, with gross written motor
premiums exceeding £20bn, this would translate to
costs of around £600-800 million per year to UK
motorists, adding around £20-25 per premium. If this
became common knowledge among British motorists,
it’s very likely that calls to regulate e-scooters would
intensify considerably.
The MIB is, of course, legally obliged to compensate
the non-fault victims of accidents involving uninsured
e-scooters. These victims fully deserve to be protected.
However, with 1,349 collisions involving e-scooters in
the year ending June 2022 - not to mention apparent
costs of around £600-800m - this would roughly
translate to around £450,000-£600,000 per collision.
Clearly, such figures would be absurd, which is
why there’s an urgent need for this estimate to be
published – opening the door to full scrutiny and
workings. Motorists are already facing hefty premiums
at a difficult time
through rising repair
costs. Meanwhile, a
reduced bill remains
for personal injury
claims. We deserve
full transparency and
disclosure of these
figures so motorists
can see what they’re
paying for.
Anthony Hughes
Title: Chairman & CEO
Association: Credit Hire Organisation (CHO)
Catastrophic
Events, Climate
& Loss
Perhaps you wouldn’t think that mobility
provision is sensitive to surge events, but
floods, fires and other catastrophes have a
tendency to impact the Credit Hire industry
as much as any other. In 2017, for example,
more than 1,000 vehicles were destroyed
in a huge car park fire in Liverpool on New
Year’s Eve.
In that instance, mobility providers would’ve needed to
provide 1,000 like-for-like vehicles for customers, all of
whom need to get to work or take their kids to school.
In another natural disaster, following Storm Dennis and
Storm Ciara in February 2020, salvage company Copart
collected 3,000 flood damaged cars in one day, mostly
from the South West where these storms were at their
most ferocious.
The majority of Credit Hire business is derived from
insurer partners, most of whom are hugely concerned
by the climate emergency themselves - not least
because the cost of reinsurance has risen sharply,
putting great pressure on commercial and personal
premiums.
Earlier this year, Howden Broking Group said that
global property catastrophe risk-adjusted reinsurance
rates-on-line were up by an average of 37%, the biggest
year-on-year increase since 1992.
Natural disasters such as Storm Dennis are becoming
much more frequent, and reinsurers have been exposed
to such heavy losses that, even with inflation-busting
increases in the price of reinsurance treaties, it may
eventually become impossible for them to provide the
safety net of coverage.
The pace of global warming is accelerating; the
warnings are flashing red.
Governments and insurers are
contemplating a scenario
where the private sector
cannot deliver insurance
for catastrophic certainties
on its own. Our industry –
currently working through
immediate challenges in
the motor supply chain –
must also start thinking
through the ways in
which its own business
models will deal with the
approaching storm.
MODERN INSURANCE | 35