Property owners cover prices rise by 30% for worst portfolios

Property owners’ insurance rates are rising, the FT reports.

It quotes Trevor Seymour, insurance manager at DTZ Insurance Services, the property consultancy's in-house broker, as saying: "We are not looking at large-scale rises as in the early 1990s," but about 5%.

It quotes Nigel Salisbury, head of real estate at Marsh, saying: "We are seeing a gradual tightening up of the underwriting environment."

John Dilley, managing director of Willis's property investors division, is quoted as saying owners of worse-performing portfolios saw rises between 10% and 30%.

And Bill Gloyn, chairman of European real estate in Aon's mergers and acquisitions group, said: "It would be better for everybody if prices were raised in a more gradual way, rather than as a knee-jerk reaction. 20% rises in overheads are not good for anybody," he says.

Rising reinsurance and the extra risk that empty properties face are pushing up prices. Underwriters also want to se risk management in place.

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