AXA sees 60% decline in commercial and retail motor claims since coronavirus lockdown

AXA Insurance UK has seen retail and commercial motor insurance claims drop by more than 60% as a result of the nation-wide lockdown, introduced to mitigate the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

Waseem Malik, AXA’s executive managing director for claims, added that although lockdown measures were relaxed by prime minister Boris Johnson earlier this week, which resulted in a slight increase in claims, overall claims volume is still vastly reduced.

He told Insurance Times: “With lockdown, people are driving less so we have seen a decline in motor claims, both commercial motor and retail motor. They’re probably down 60% plus just because cars are not on the road.

“As lockdown is now starting to get released, we are starting to see a slight uptick, but it’s still way below what we would normally see.”

Claims volume

Malik continued that household claims had also dropped by around 40% since the government’s lockdown regime was imposed.

“If we look at property classes, household for instance, again that’s probably down around 40%,” he said. “Because everyone’s at home all the time, if there’s any leak or anything, policyholders are there so they can get to it straight away.

“Obviously, theft claims are down because everyone’s at home, so we’ve certainly seen that trend as well. Liability claims are down because businesses are closed and everyone’s in lockdown.”

However, AXA has noted increases in both travel and business interruption claims.

Malik added: “The two areas where there has been a spike has been travel and then business interruption claims, where obviously businesses have been disrupted. So, they’re probably the two areas where we’ve seen the most frequency increases, everything else has gone down.”