ABACUS Exposed April 2021

Product Exposed Residential Property Owners

Broker Spotlight

White Knight Group - Michelle Howells

April 2021

Issue

27

Introduction

A message from Richard Burgess Welcome to the most recent edition of ABACUS Exposed. None of us would have imagined that we would still be in some form of Lockdown over a year after this COVID journey started. Here at ABACUS we have been working really hard to ensure that our service levels continue to be market leading and I would like to thank you all for your support. We are receiving lots of positive feedback informing us that you have been impressed with our “business as usual” approach.

Our teams have been working very hard and it is so pleasing to know that you have recognised this and appreciated the efforts we have gone to.

As the clocks spring forward we seem to be moving towards a more positive outlook for the remainder of 2021 – fingers crossed!

The White Knight Group have been trading with us for many years and it is great to see them as this edition’s Broker Spotlight – thanks to Michelle and her team for continuing to support us over such a long period of time. We enjoy the long term relationships we have with many of our Brokers and never take for granted this commitment.

We are hoping to resume in person Broker visits later this year, our virtual visits are going to be here to stay and they will enable Robin and our Agency team to offer an even greater level of service to you in the future.

Our regulatory landscape continues to change and with forthcoming changes to General Insurance Pricing Practices, value

measures reporting and financial crime reporting we are certainly going to be kept busy.

Thanks again for all your support and we look forward to developing our relationships with you further during the remainder of 2021.

We have signed up for the Insurance Age Expo on the 11th November and I hope to see many of you in person at this event.

Stay safe.

Richard Burgess ACIEH, Cert CII, MCIM, MICA Director e: richardb@sabacus.co.uk m: 07725 365447

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Previous Caption Competition Winners

The winning caption was from Michael Curry of MAPPS Insurance:

‘Amazing, they’ve found a cure for Covid which means I can get to the work in the office!’

2nd prize goes to Paul Richardson of Ashbourne Insurance

‘The Mexican wave didn’t quite have the same effect when working from home’ 3rd prize goes to Brian Maunder of Brian Maunder Insurance with:

‘First time in months I’ve put a suit on and now find it’s shrunk!’

Well done to our winners and thank you to everyone who entered! We look forward to receiving your entries for this edition’s competition.

ABACUS Caption Competition We have some great prizes up for grabs in our everpopular Caption Competition. The prizes for the top three entries are:

1st £ 50 Voucher of your choice Can you come up with a funny caption for this image?

2nd £25 iTunes Voucher 3rd £10 Next Voucher

To be in with a chance, simply send your caption entry for the photograph above to robing@sabacus.co.uk

by Friday 4th June 2021 Good Luck Everyone!

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News round up Fewer landlords buying with cash More buy to let investors are turning to mortgage borrowing for the purchase of their buy to let properties, according to a recent survey cited by Property Wire.

It may have been something of an oddity in the property investment market, but by 2017, an estimated 62% of buy to let landlords had purchased their properties using cash, revealed the study. Since that peak, however, the number of cash purchases has steadily fallen, to reach a current 52% across the country as a whole.

Buy to let mortgages are most likely to be needed where suitable properties are relatively expensive, of course, but a preference for cash purchases remains in those areas and regions where such property is cheaper. For that reason, cash was used by almost two-thirds (65%) of buy to let landlords investing in Wales in 2020, 64% in the northwest of England, and 61% in the northeast.

What tenants want Any landlord worth their salt will want to know what features are most highly prized by prospective tenants.

According to a recent news piece, more living space – and room in which to set up a home office – is high on that list of priorities for tenants suffering from the cabin-fever of successive lockdowns.

Practically, that translates into a preference for a home that has the extra space offered by a garage (sought by 21% of prospective tenants), and a rental property with a garden (18%), or at least a balcony (16%).

If your target market is student tenants, you may need to gear up for the particular needs of those studying away from home. A study in January, for instance, warned that 58% of prospective student tenants would not say yes to rented accommodation unless it offered reliable high-speed broadband.

While forced to work from home, a third of all students have been logged on for an extra five hours a day, 21% for an additional four to five hours, and 24% for two to three more hours.

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News round up Pets and lets The government has pinned its nails to the mast by encouraging more landlords to allow tenants to keep a pet in their rented property, explained an article in Which? magazine on the 6th of February.

The encouragement comes by way of a change to the model tenancy agreement which the government recommends landlords to use. It is a model agreement and, therefore in no way obligatory, but if a landlord chooses to adopt the recommended format, they will also be agreeing to a tenant keeping a “well-behaved” pet if so requested in writing by the tenant. The landlord then has 28 days in which to give – also in writing – any reasons why the request is being declined (because the flat is too small, for example).

In announcing the change, the Housing Minister revealed that only around 7% of all landlords currently allow tenants to keep pets. He hoped for greater flexibility and tolerance from landlords in future for those tenants who wanted the companionship of a well-behaved that risked causing no damage to the let property.

Majority of the UK’s largest cities are still experiencing a property boom Despite the confusion and uncertainty of successive lockdowns during the pandemic, economic challenges, and doubts about the security of employment, the majority of the UK’s main cities are riding the wave of a property sales boom.

According to a recent report, eleven out of twenty of the biggest cities had between 1% and 67% more homes for sale this January than they did in the same month last year. The remaining nine cities recorded a dip in advertised sales of between -1% and -25%.

Cities registering the biggest increases in advertised sales include Edinburgh (67%), London (40%), Manchester (20%), Brighton (19%), Birmingham (17%), Coventry (15%), Belfast (13%), and Bristol (13%).

Bradford, Liverpool, Newcastle, Derby, Glasgow, and Hull, on the other hand, all registered a drop in the number of homes for sale at the beginning of this year compared with January 2020.

Unoccupied property FAQs The latest figures reveal that there are 268,385 long-term empty homes in the UK – meaning there are potential opportunities for providing your clients with unoccupied property insurance cover.

What does unoccupied property insurance cover?

Unoccupied property insurance is designed to step in and cover everything that would have been protected by regular home insurance or landlord’s buy to let insurance before the premises became empty and unoccupied.

Unoccupied property insurance stands on its own as a distinct and separate piece of insurance for as long as you need the protection for a property that is unoccupied.

Here are some frequently asked questions We offer three levels of cover for you to (FAQs) your customers may ask about choose from, so you can select the most the product … appropriate protection for your property.

What is unoccupied property?

The cover is also flexible. Unlike most other types of general insurance, you can buy unoccupied property insurance for periods of less than a full 12 months.

If you expect the property to remain unoccupied for just six months, say, you can arrange unoccupied property Insurers have particular concerns about insurance to cover those six months unoccupied property: alone. Then, if you need to extend or l i t tends to attract vandals, squatters or reduce the period of cover, you can. even arsonists; and Unoccupied property is pretty much just what it says – property that is unoccupied, or in other words, empty or vacant, with no one living there.

l a nything in need of repair or maintenance can turn into an emergency in an unoccupied property because there is no one there to spot the need for action.

For that reason, insurers typically restrict the extent of cover for your home or any buy to let accommodation if it has been unoccupied for longer than 30 to 45 consecutive days – the exact time varying from one insurer to another. If you fail to get appropriate unoccupied property insurance and rely solely on your home or landlord insurance when the property is empty, the policy may revert to what is frequently termed basic FLEA cover – standing for cover against Fire, Lightning, Earthquake, and Aircraft impacts. In other cases, the cover may lapse completely.

To keep the level of protection your vacant property continues to need, you must therefore arrange specialist, standalone unoccupied property insurance.

extended holiday abroad. You might have the builders in to do some alterations or build an extension and have moved out of your house or let property while the work is in progress.

If you are the landlord of buy to let property, there might be a longer than usual interval between one set of tenants moving out and the new ones moving in – while the property remains unoccupied in the meantime.

I have an empty property that is going through Probate. What insurance do I need?

When a property is subject to probate, it is by no means unusual for it to stay empty and unoccupied until that legal process is finished – and this can take as long as 12 months or so.

You need to make sure that the executors – who are solely responsible for managing the estate of the deceased during probate – have arranged suitable unoccupied property insurance to safeguard the premises and their contents against any loss or damage.

If my property is furnished, but no one is living there, does that count as an empty property?

Is there anything I need to do when I have unoccupied property insurance?

As far as insurers are concerned, it doesn’t matter whether or not your property is furnished – if no one has been living there for longer than 30 to 45 consecutive days and nights it is unoccupied.

Even with unoccupied property insurance in place, you still have a responsibility for staying on top of your empty property by mitigating any risks.

Indeed, if the empty property is furnished you might have an even greater need for unoccupied property insurance because you stand to suffer a bigger financial loss if the contents are stolen, lost, or damaged.

This might mean arranging regular, logged visits and inspections of the property. Depending on the time of year, you may be required to keep the heating at a certain temperature to stop frozen pipes, and so on.

Summary I am working away from home for Ensuring your home, holiday home, several weeks – do I need special probate property or let property is home insurance?

The insurer has no interest in why your home is unoccupied – only the fact that it is.

properly protected while it is empty is key. Speak to us today to see how we can help.

It might be that you are working away from home for longer than a month or so; it could be that you have taken an

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How to drive

local traffic One of the advantages of being a local broker over a national player is the fact that you can dominate your local market. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for a large insurance company to be listed in every town and city in the land whether online (such as Google Places) or offline (such as the Yellow Pages directory).

But while they can’t do it, you still need to. You need to actively look for ways to attract local business.

Here are a few ways to drive local traffic to your site or even get more people dropping by the office.

Deal sites

There are a number of deal sites online that offer cheap deals to those signed up with them locally. This could be something for a restaurant, beauty treatment and the like – you know most things you find on a high street.

This is normally a discounted product or voucher they can redeem. This might be something you can look to offer or work with a company that already has an offer in place.

This could be a free insurance audit, money off premiums, you get the idea.

Here are a few sites you can look at.

While all of them are nationals, they do have local offer directories. l Amazon Local www.local.amazon.co.uk/businesses

l Groupon www.grouponworks.co.uk

l F acebook - Look for Local Groups

Find some more specialist local sites

Google your county or town and daily deals so, for example, “Essex Daily Deals” – there will be local sites you can work with.

Local Search

Most of the major search engines have an ever-increasing number of local searches being carried out, either online or via a mobile device. You can see this if you search for a product and again add your town to the search term.

Normally you will get some kind of map appear with listings. This is local search, and you need to make sure you are on the maps of all these services. l Google Local www.google.com/places

l Bing

Local www. bing.my118information.co.uk/Search.aspx

l Yahoo Local

www.cityvisitor.co.uk/listyourbusiness

Classifieds

In the days before the internet, people used classified ads to promote and sell in a low-cost way. Now while online, this will not drive a huge amount of traffic, Classified Ads sites do show up from time to time in Google. So, by simply adding an ad, you could be receiving traffic.

Local Directories Carry out any search with your keyword plus location. For example: “Car Insurance Medway” - you invariably bring up a directory site.

Register and list your site here as well.

In this way, you will have more than one way of driving traffic from page one of local search. These will include national sites as well as local regional sites too. On top of that there could be industry specific sites that rank as well. And some may only have one other site listed in your keywords or categories. l Yell

www.yell.com

l I nsurance Broker Directory

www.theinsurancebrokerdirectory.co.uk

l City Visitor

www.cityvisitor.co.uk

l UK Directory

www.ukdirectory.co.uk/insurance/insurancebrokers

Now most of these techniques are set and forget, so you just simply need set these up once. Take some time out to make sure you have as many of these bases covered, so you attract the most local business possible.

Good luck!

l Gumtree

www.gumtree.co.uk

l F riday Ad

www.friday-ad.co.uk

l F ree Ads

www.freeads.co.uk

l UK Classifieds

www.ukclassifieds.co.uk

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Product Exposed Residential Property Owners Insurance As you may be aware, our Residential Property Owners (RPO) insurance is one of our most popular products – not only is it easy for you to get an immediate quote online from our panel of specialist insurers, but our RPO insurance offers what we believe is very cost-effective cover and additional benefits not available with some other providers (such as Trace & Access cover and malicious damage by tenant as standard).

Here is a quick refresh of our ABACUS RPO insurance …

Why ABACUS RPO?

Who is the product for?

lC ost-effective, flexible cover to meet your customers’ own unique needs.

This product is for landlords who own and let out a residential property.

What does it cover?

Our policies cover all the standard risks associated with landlords insurance including many elements of protection which some other let property insurance policies from other providers exclude (e.g. subsidence and communal contents as standard).

lO ur policies cover all the standard risks associated with landlords insurance including many elements of protection which some let property insurance policies from other providers exclude. l Our system gives you: – i nstant online access to our panel of insurers, with immediate quotes.

– access to all your customers’ documentation online

Key features of our Residential Property Owners product

– t he ability to request cancellations and confirm renewals online.

l Up to 25% commission.

l I f a quotation “refers”, we will come back to you quickly with our Terms.

l All property and tenant types covered, no tenant restrictions. lC ommunal contents, subsidence, Trace & Access, and malicious damage by tenant typically all included as standard. l L oss of rent included up to 20% of building sum insured. lP roperty owners’ liability insurance up to £5million. l Contents only option. l Portfolio risks catered for. l I mmediate online access to our panel of insurers. lP olicy documentation available immediately online.

lP olicy documentation available immediately online. lH elp and support readily available from our New Business Team.

Customer + Broker + residential property owners insurance = ABACUS At ABACUS we are committed to our Broker Members by providing ongoing marketing support and help.

If you have any questions or queries in relation to this or any other product, or with getting a property insurance quote, please do not hesitate to contact our Agency & Marketing Team on 01702 606 312. They will be more than happy to help.

l E asy to use referral system online for “that difficult quotation”.

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Virtually out & About Winter Edition 2021 2021 has started with a bang for us at ABACUS, as we have been virtually meeting with many of you across the country throughout this time. Whether you are back in your office, or working remotely, we are delighted to see you.

Robin January Christmas Jumpers put back in the wardrobe for another year, we were very busy seeing the New Year in, virtually visiting 37 of you; with offices based across the country, ranging from Edinburgh to Exeter, the Isle of Man to Inverness, and Carlisle to Cheshunt!

January By The Numbers Virtual Visits Held – 37 | Miles Travelled – 0

February February has seen many different types of virtual meeting held. Firstly, we have spoken to you over a wide range of platforms, from Microsoft Teams, to Zoom, and even Facetime being some brokers preferred choice. Secondly, screen sharing allowed us to hold some ABACUS refresher product training for some brokers, which is a great opportunity to get the team together and put any of our products through a sharp lens. We were able to touch 674 of you this month, it was fantastic to engage with as many of you as possible.

February By The Numbers Virtual Visits Held – 42 | Miles Travelled – 0

March Spring is on the way, and much like the daffodils, we have had a colourful month. It has been a pleasure talking to so many of our brokers in March, seeing 40 of you in a busy month. As we enter stage one of the national lockdown exit plan, it is as important as ever that we maintain contact in this time.

Let’s Get Quizzical We got back to holding an ABACUS quiz night in March for staff. It was a superb night hosted by quizmaster Robin Gentle. The quiz was as broad as ever, with questions varying from the Tudors and famous houses to the Wizard of Oz & the Marvel Universe.

March By The Numbers Virtual Visits Held – 40 | Miles Travelled – 0

We are virtually here for you!

If you would like to arrange a review meeting with ABACUS, we are still here for you, and can hold meetings via telephone or video. Please contact Robin Gentle (robing@sabacus.co.uk) to set up a meeting.

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Broker Spotlight Michelle Howells White Knight Group 1. Tell us about your brokerage.

In our present form, the brokerage was established in 1989 and is still run by two of the original Partners. We are located in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and along with offering most types of insurance cover, we also provide financial services such as pensions, investment and mortgage advice.

2. What are your plans for the next 12 months?

Property/Landlords insurance is by far our biggest book of business and we will continue to promote and grow the account as we have done for the last few years with great success. Striving to provide a ‘second to none’ service to all of our new and existing Clients is paramount to us and that will never change so we will be looking to enhance this also.

3. Why do you support ABACUS? Simple! Speed, service and products.

Any queries or manual quotes are turned around in record time, their service is of the standard that I would expect our Clients to receive from us (and I have high standards!) and their products fit with 90% of our Clients’ needs which is very good going in my opinion.

4. What is your favourite sports team?

I’m not in to sport apart from darts in which case in the absence of Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, it would have to be Michael Van Gerwen.

5. What hobbies do you have?

I love weekends away and music events but there’s been none of that so far this year sadly, so I’ve actually had to get in to gardening.

6. What is your favourite food?

Tricky one as I love food, and I mean any food. At a push I’d say paella – I’d eat it for breakfast if I could.

7. What car do you drive?

Mercedes GLA 8. What is your favourite drink?

A couple of years ago I’d have said anything apart from Pernod, Whisky or Brandy but now I’m more likely to say a cocktail - without any of the aforementioned!

9. What is your favourite Holiday destination?

I’ve always loved all things Spanish and adore the Spanish islands but then I went to Turkey and it became my new fave.

Agency & Marketing Are Here To Help!

Although we are mostly remote working currently, our Agency & Marketing team are here to help you with all Agency queries!

If you would like to discuss your ABACUS agency over many of the video platforms, or via the telephone, Robin & Jecelda are available to speak to you on 01702 606 312, or email us at agency@sabacus.co.uk.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Contact Information Accounts

Claims

Agency & Marketing

Existing Business

Tel: 01702 606 320 Email: accounts@sabacus.co.uk

Tel: 01702 606 312 Email: agency@sabacus.co.uk

Tel: 01702 606 311 Email: claims@sabacus.co.uk

New Business Team

Tel: 01702 606 304 Email: newbusiness@sabacus.co.uk

Tel: 01702 606 306 Email: existingbusiness@sabacus.co.uk

The information contained above is not intended as legal or broking advice. Specific advice should always be sought on individual requirements and it is always necessary to read the contractual documentation for full details of the product and cover provided.

This newsletter is managed by ABACUS, the content including all views and expressions are those of ABACUS. ABACUS is one of a range of products marketed and distributed by BLINK Intermediary Solutions. ABACUS is provided by Alan Blunden & Co Limited, Baxter Building, 80 Baxter Avenue, Southend on Sea, Essex, SS2 6HZ. Alan Blunden & Co Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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