In 2011, we are starting to see some, not all, of the business insurance companies we deal with increasing premiums on their renewals. It has always been a source of concern that they tend to buy in new business. The prices you can get for a new quote, compared to identical terms for, say, a third year renewal can be vastly different.
But, it is not just our industry, I am sure that every single trade carried out in the UK has their “loss leader” type business. It is frustrating for us though, because we, as brokers, tend to bear the brunt of peoples anger as we are the front end of business and are the ones that speak to the end consumers. The commercial insurance senior staff can sit in their, sometimes, ivory towers and decree that renewals will go up by x%. An astute broker will keep a close eye on things though and whether you are paying £200 or £20,000 your year on year percentage increase, form 2010 to 2011 should not be more than a few percent. Insurance premium tax has gone up, so you should expect 1%, inflation and a few other costs have pushed things up so, on clean (no claims) business, a 3-4% increase is what we would expect.
Any more than that and you may need to start speaking to your broker, or maybe anpther one, about getting an alternative. If a broker says there is no alternative, then they are not quite telling the truth. There is always and alternative, it just may be that your current broker does not have enough providers to help them get a better price for the same cover.