What's next for motor subrogation?

RSA has won a second court case over the costs it charges other insurers for its car repair arrangements.

Allianz and Provident lost a High Court appeal yesterday over the issue, when Justice Cooke ruled that RSA had been entitled to charge for add-on costs.

However, this might not be the end of the issue. Allianz and Provident may still decide to take their grievance to the Court of Appeal.

How widespread the practice becomes also depends on the current probe into motor repair costs that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) passed onto the Competition Commission last week.

The OFT’s gripe was that insurers of not-at-fault drivers, brokers, credit hire firms and repairers can hike repair costs for other insurers owing to the insurers of at-fault drivers having little control over the process.

If the Competition Commission decides that insurers should not profit from motor repair subrogation, the issue could be revisited again. However, this is unlikely to happen until the commission publishes its final report in 18 months to two years’ time.

Broker Service Survey: Personal lines winners announced

Brokers have spoken and they’ve again chosen Chubb as best for service in personal lines in the Insurance Times annual Broker Service Survey. Chubb’s highly focused offer makes it a consistent winner in the survey rankings, and it takes first place for the fourth year in a row.  Oak Underwriting won second place, and Hiscox came in third.

Brokers scored insurers higher for service than they had in 2011. The average service score was 3.68, of a possible 5, for the 18 major personal lines insurers ranked this year, up by 0.16 points from 3.52 in 2011.

Brokers expectations are also rising. When asked to rate the importance of different service areas, scores went up in all but one case. Underwriting Expertise and Flexibility was rated the most important, scoring 4.63 of a possible 5, up by 0.33 points compared to 2011.

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