Home insurance rates could harden after ‘complex’ year, insurtech Urban Jungle warns

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A range of factors are pushing rates higher, the insurtech told Insurance Times

After a complicated 2020 which includes a mixture of insurers exiting lines and increased claims, the insurance market could see rate increases in the home and property market.

This is according to Jimmy Williams, chief executive at Munich-Re backed insurtech Urban Jungle.

He told Insurance Times: “It’s been a complex year in the world of home and property insurance.”

Williams said that these complications were due to major UK floods, business interruption claims arising from the pandemic as well as spiralling crime rates in some areas, for example bike thefts rising by 125% from August to October.

hard market

He continued: “I would expect the market to harden and rates to go up a bit given all of this, especially with some insurers exiting the market, but we’ve been investing heavily in data and fraud screening technology which have helped keep loss ratios in line, and we don’t expect to put our own rates up next year.”

Williams added that other types of claims arising from burglaries have actually reduced due to people working from home for the majority of the year.

Perfect storm

Meanwhile, Ben Rose, chief underwriting officer at Superscript, said: “The current pandemic has hit small businesses a lot harder than their larger, established counterparts.

”Not only are SMEs struggling with cashflow and profitability, but the hard insurance market (in part driven by the pandemic) is also causing insurance premiums to rise. It’s unfortunately a perfect storm.”

It follows many SMEs and corporates turning to premium finance to help fund insurance.