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This
is an Insurance article by an independent author and jml
Insurance takes no responsibility
for its accuracy or content also featued on the jml Property
Insurance blog
Review
of ARLA Agreement Magazine on Insurance (August 2009) By Philip
Suter
I
have just received the August edition of ARLA
(The Association of Residential Letting Agents) monthly magazine.
The August edition has been called "Insurance Special". Rental
property insurance has become a major industry with the growth
of the domestic rental market in the UK over the last few
years.
Many
insurance providers offer a tenant referencing service these
days and no landlord or tenant should not be with out the
appropriate insurance. The magazine is geared for the members
of ARLA and naturally the magazine is full of ads for insurance,
letting agent software, rental furnishings and other related
topics.
Initially
flicking through the August edition insurance the mores established
larger providers like Endsleigh, Letsure and HomeLet have
one page colour ads and newer entrants to the market like
LetSense, Let Insurance Services and Landlordsure have taken
smaller ads.
The
magazine features key individuals involved in the property
insurance business. Some of these I have known or worked with
in my career running lettings offices and developing landlord
and tenants insurance marketing websites.
The
first insurance "personality" is entitled "Money Worries"
and the article features John
Boyle the Managing Director of HomeLet.
jml insurance has been working with HomLet since 2002 and
during that time the company has been owned by several providers
and is now part of the Barbon Insurance Group. It had previously
been owned by Erinacious who had also bought HomeLet's main
competitor Letsure. According to John Boyle the previous owners
(before they went into administration) had intended to merge
them. Now under Barbon they are operating as separate entities
with Letsure
still being based in Glasgow.
HomeLet
is based in Lincoln, employing 250 people and it the first
six months of 2009 it ran 48,000 credit checks on tenants,
58,000 full references and sold 50,000 rent guarantee policies.
These rent guarantees are now very important as John Boyle
says with the number of unemployed people expecting to peak
at around three million in 2010 and landlords looking for
security.
HomeLet
has recently introduced a lower price tenants contents insurance
- Tenants Contents Insurance +. This policy as taken into
account that there are so many people sharing now that it
covers the policy holder and two additional sharers.
Moving
on a few pages you come to "Reducing risk" "When former ARLA
chairman Philip Cook had a good idea, he little thought that
years later, it would become a successful business in its
own right".
Philip
Cook set up a letting business in 1987, about three years
after I set up the Frank Farr lettings. He was a former chairman
(they now call them Presidents) between 1991 and 1993 approximately
two years after I left the ARLA national council. In 2003
he merged his business with Francis Burkinshaw's to create
Ashton Burkinshaw. According to the Agreement article, un
the mid nineties he came up with the idea of insuring landlords
against loss of rent for any reason whatsoever and any associated
legal costs, but where the agent was in control and shared
the risks and profits.
The
"National Residential" product was suitable only for selected
agents. Philip Cook was approached by former chartered surveyor
Michael Portman who had in 2001 gone to work for LetSure.
He stayed with Letsure till the business was sold to Erinacious
and the Hargrave House, Maidenhead premises vacated. He formed
his own company Let Insurance Services and another former
director of Letsure, Robert Lumley came on board. Philip Cook
is now the chairman with Michael Portman as managing director
and Robert Lumley as a director. With this company you have
letting agents / landlords running the insurance business
and who else knows better than what the landlords want than
a former letting agent.
Turning
over to page 31 there is a feature on a fairly new player
in the landlord and tenant insurance market, although the
team running it have been around for quite a while.
"Premium
importance" is title of the article. Brian
Turney set up the first rent protection policy in 1987.
He has some 40 years experience in the insurance industry,
seventeen of which have been in the residential lettings market
in 1990 helped set up a firm called Richmunds Insurance. The
firm had a turnover of £100,000 in the first year and Brian
Turney helped transform it into a £8.2 million turnover business
Lumley Letsure by 2006.
He
was instrumental in introducing products like tenant credit
referencing, rent and legal protection and left Letsure in
2007. Brian Turney has left Lumley Letsure (from "Fact
Files www.jml-insurance.co.uk)
Brian Turney the former managing director of Letsure has
now left the company following the acquisition of the Lumley
Holdings Group by Erinaceous Insurance Services who also own
competitor HomeLet. Brian Turney was the managing director
for a number of years and has been involved with the selling
of insurance and tenant assessment products for nearly 20
years in the UK.- June 2007
In October 2009 together with Peter Knowles who was with Norwich
Union, Alan Holton who was also at Letsure and also HomeLet
and Rob Jones who was at Letsure they established LetSense.
Finally
on Page 33 is the article "The challenger" This is about Carlos
Thompson and Endsleigh,
Carlos is the general manager of the new EndsleighLet division.
Endsleigh was originally set up in 1965 by the National Union
of Students and had branches on campuses. It remains the biggest
specialist student insurer and was recently acquired by Zurich.
There are some 1,000 employees.
Two
years ago EndsleighLet was set up to cater for insuring everything
from student lets to first time buyers. Carlo Thompson says
in the article that many insurers dislike student lettings
and charge landlords a premium. Endsleigh have created a landlord
product which actually offers a discount to landlords who
let to students.
Endsleigh
have now gone into the referencing business with a partnership
with Experian and everything now is done on line.
There
are still a lot more insurance companies out in the market
place involved in the property rental insurance business.
Rentguard,
Simple,
Devon
Direct and Rentshield
Direct to mention four others who advertise on the jml-preoperty-insurance.co.uk
site and who could always feature in another edition of the
ARLA Agreement magazine.
The
information supplied on this page is by a third party and
jml Property Services do not take any responsibility to its
accuracy ©jmlpropertyservices 08/09
(Philip Suter)
________________________________
ARLA
- Association of Residential Letting Agents
Neville
Lee and John Birch as the professional and regulatory body
for letting agents in the UK formed the Association of Residential
Lettings Agents (ARLA) in 1981. It was recognised that the
requirements of the residential lettings market were so detailed
and specific that a separate organisation was required to
promote standards in this important and growing sector of
the property market.
ARLA has 1,800 member offices throughout the UK including
large multi-branch national companies as well as the smaller
single office practices. Membership is achieved only by agents
who demonstrate that they have a thorough knowledge of their
profession and that they conduct their business according
to current best management practice
All
members are required to have professional indemnity insurance
cover. In addition they are covered by a bonding scheme, which
provides financial protection for client monies, which have
been misappropriated.
ARLA members are governed by the Code of Practice providing
a framework of ethical and professional standards at a level
far higher than the law demands. The Association runs a series
of meetings, training courses and seminars at local and national
levels to ensure that members are kept fully up to date with
the latest best practice. Examinations are held regularly
and membership rules require all member offices to have professionally
qualified staff by the year 2000. Members' accounts are required
to be audited annually ensuring that they conform to stringent
accounting practice.
ARLA
Website
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