Industry must keep UK Plc trading.
Credit insurers are discrediting the whole industry. Pulling cover from otherwise healthy businesses because the risks have slightly increased is no way to behave.
Their actions are causing companies that have strong bases and ongoing contracts to go bust, and are stopping troubled firms from making a swift and full recovery. And there can be no justification.
It smacks of greedy insurers raking in the profits when times are good and risks are minimal but then failing to stick by their customers when times get hard.
Insurance is about risk. When a firm is certain to have its bills unpaid then of course credit insurance cannot be offered – it is no longer a risk, but a certainty. But when a supplier only faces an increased risk of bills being unpaid, insurers must react with calm and measured responses.
By all means start to nudge up premiums. Begin discussions with governments or regulators about how far the industry can go before pulling cover, explain to clients why their individual risks are rising and what they can do to help minimise those risks. Even bring supply chains together to develop a unified and clearly understood approach.
But to just pull cover is a disgrace. It is not even as if the firms facing insurance bans have increased their claims. It is not as if the credit insurers are paying out more in claims than they receive in premiums. Loss ratios are still at 70%. There can be no excuse.
A small number of credit insurers are behaving like an oligopoly and uncompetitively destroying the competitiveness of UK Plc. But it will be too late if we wait for competition authorities to act.
The rest of the UK insurance industry needs to bang these fools’ heads together. If that fails, step in and offer cover to replace that withdrawn – make sure these credit insurers become pariahs and cannot find customers when the good times return.
It has never been clearer that if the insurance industry fails to be part of the solution, it is part of the problem.
