INSURANCE THAT LETS YOU RELAX...
Leisuredays is one of the UK’s leading holiday caravan insurance specialists.
We work closely with over 1,100 well-managed parks delivering what they want most from a customer insurance partner: minimal administration, efficient claims handling, maximum customer value, easy referral methods, and great cover benefits for customers.
Want to build a new customer insurance arrangement or review an existing one? Get in touch with our Business Development Team today.
Leisuredays Insurance
01422 396 693
www.leisuredays.co.uk
Claims are also impacted by major weather events from time to time. In early 2018, the Beast from the East and Storm Emma resulted in a high rate of weather-related damage claims. For owners, matters are made more complicated as no two park businesses are the same: every business’ insurance requirements are unique. “Your customers will want the reassurance of extensive insurance cover for accidental damage, fi re, theft, storm, flooding and vermin,” advises Liz Harrison from Leisuredays. “Severe flooding, storms, or fire can cause signifi cant damage to a holiday park and if you’re in the unfortunate situation where many units are written off, then you’ll want these quickly removing from your park,” Liz continues. “The Leisuredays policy automatically includes £10,000 for each damaged unit to be removed, and for a new unit to be resited and connected to utilities.” Many industry brokers operate a network of local account executives who can support you in identifying your individual insurance needs.
Tim Smyth, MD of Compass: “A good account executive will take time to fully understand your business and how it operates – and will support you in deciding on the appropriate levels of cover you need accordingly. “They will look for hidden and not-so-obvious risks which, left undetected, may pose a threat to your park. Sometimes optional/additional covers may be necessary, and your AE should be able to fi nd what best suits YOUR needs.” In addition, a good account executive should also be committed to regularly visiting your park and building a good relationship with you. Tim suggests: “They should aim to carry out an insurance review at regular intervals to check whether the insurance needs of your business have changed. If they have, your cover may need to be adjusted to reflect this.”
Some other key areas to consider when arranging insurance cover include the adequacy of your Sums Insured, the changing needs of your business and the terms, conditions and exclusion attached to your cover. Tim explains: “We sometimes see new clients whose previous cover or sum insured would not be adequate should an incident impact their income over a long period of time (e.g. longer than just 12 months). Protecting any Liability to the public through products or activities provided on the Park is also crucial.” At Wilby, holiday park insurance specialists through their Park Protect scheme, a campaign has been launched to help businesses protect themselves by raising the limits of their liability insurance. Wilby is recommending that businesses increase their indemnity limit for employers’ public and products liability cover to at least £30m. The company of trusted independent chartered insurancebrokers argue that recent cases mean that the bar has been raised, and businesses and individuals need to increase their level of protection.
Wilby’s Managing Director Richard Blackburn explains: "It can be hard to imagine that when you have employers’, public or products liability cover of £5m, £10m or even £20m that there may be times this can be insufficient. “However, we live in an age where levels of litigation have never been higher. Businesses and individuals have an increased awareness of their legal rights, coupled with the relative ease of accessing the UK legal system to pursue a compensatory award where negligence is alleged.” The issue has been made worse by the fact that the costs attached to claims are also being driven ever higher, with previous awards used as a basis for future settlements. Changes to the discount rate, the figure used to help set compensation pay-outs when people suffer serious injuries, made in March 2017 mean the potential for even higher personal injury settlements is even greater. The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA), one of the leading UK insurance bodies which issues periodic advice to its members, now recommends a minimum indemnity limit of £23m. But, with the legal environment continually evolving, Wilby recommends that serious consideration is given to purchasing liability limits of no less than £30m.