Biba dishes out journalism awards, Wimbledon’s upcoming ball fetchers, Mary Poppins and an unusual car insurance claim. What has the insurance industry been up to this month? You heard it here first…
Insurance Times editorial team bags Biba awards
Insurance Times received recognition as a leading trade publication for brokers at the Biba Journalist and Media Awards 2022 on 29 June 2022. Editor Katie Scott won the Best Trade Award and was additionally shortlisted for the Best Thought Leadership Award.
Reporter Isobel Rafferty received a highly commended prize in the Most Promising Newcomer category.
Meanwhile, technology editor Clare Ruel was shortlisted for the Best Investigative Journalism Award.
Scott said: “I’m incredibly proud of the whole team and it’s great to see that our content is resonating with brokers, insurers and other insurance sector participants.”
Wimbledogs
Tennis fans will be pleased to hear that pet insurance MGA ManyPets has a launched a plea to get ’ball dogs’ on courts at Wimbledon for next year’s tournament because they are “the very best fetchers”.
Oke Eleazu, ManyPets’ UK chief executive, said: “Our four-legged friends have always been highly regarded for their dedication and skill when it comes to chasing after tennis balls.
“We hope that the nation will get behind our plea and that Wimbledon grants our ball dog ambitions for 2023.”
ManyPets also released a teaser of its latest TV ad, the MGA teamed up with Uncommon London on it and it demonstrates how pets can also be therapists and motivators.
Let’s go fly a kite
On 13 June 2022, Lloyd’s of London was targeted by a Mary Poppins themed flash mob.
The Mothers Rise Up climate action group created a song and dance compilation outside Lloyd’s of London’s iconic Lime Street building to protest what it believes is the marketplace’s role in jeopardising children’s futures by underwriting fossil fuel projects.
The performance saw a team of professional dancers rework the Let’s go fly a kite scene from Mary Poppins, where work obsessed father, George Banks, has an epiphany and realises that his children are all that really matters.
The reworked song – called Let’s make insurance bright – uses lyrics that urge Lloyd’s to pioneer ethical insurance and drop fossil fuel covers.
Car insurer faces STI claim
A woman from Missouri could be paid a $5.2m (£4.2m) settlement in a car insurance claim against the Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO), a US-based motor insurer, after she allegedly contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the insured vehicle.
The claimant said she contracted human papillomavirus (HPV) from GEICO’s policyholder after she engaged with him in sexual acts in the vehicle during November and December 2017.
According to court documents cited in BBC News, she claimed that in February 2021, the car’s owner negligently caused her to be infected with HPV, a virus that is linked to cervical cancer, “by not taking proper precautions and neglecting to inform and/or disclose his diagnosis”.
The Speculator
UK ministers and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority are said to be at loggerheads, according to the Financial Times.
Even prime minister Boris Johnson is apparently getting impatient about post-Brexit changes to Solvency II, as industry voices accuse the regulator of being too cautious.
The changes include the introduction of a new Brexit Freedoms Bill, which intends to end the special status of European law in the UK’s legal framework, so that it can be easily amended or removed.
It will be interesting to see how the reform will impact insurers’ Solvency II reporting and where the spare cash ends up being spent - electric vehicles and its supporting infrastructure are currently pipped to be the key beneficiaries.
However, impending half-year financials are unlikely to reveal massive changes at this point.
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