It is fair to say that 2021 has been another tough year for the UK and the rest of the world as Covid-19 continues to affect everyday life. As an industry, we are proud to have continued to offer vital protection to policyholders during these ongoing, unprecedented times.
For the first half of the year, the City of London was a ghost town with the usual life and buzz of the City streets gone. And just as things started to get back to some normality, we have been hit with Plan B.
Folgate has taken the Working from Home policy seriously and I can confirm that employees that are able to work from home, are working from home as per government guidance until further notice.
We are well prepared for these ongoing changes and restrictions as we have been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and I am pleased to say that our usual standards of service to our supporting brokers will not be affected.
Market Conditions For 2022
We saw lots of capacity withdrawn from the market at the start of 2021 and whilst the market seems to be toughening, it has not yet reached anywhere near a hard cycle. With Europe suffering multi-billion pound losses due to the German and Belgium floods and London experiencing severe flash flooding in the summer, a change in the market place seems to be closer than ever.
Already, we have seen reinsurance premiums increasing and we expect the market to continue to react accordingly.
At Folgate, we have actively steered away from non-sustainable growth in preparation for a change in the marketplace and we continue to see steady growth across our book of business focusing heavily on quality risk selection, solid broker relationships and sustainable, competitive pricing models.
One thing we urge you to keep a close eye on is inflation.
Index linking of your clients Buildings and Contents sum insured’s is a standard practice to ensure adequate insurance cover is in place for policyholders, however, the rate of inflation is rising steeply and we will follow inflationary rises to ensure the ongoing protection of our customers.
I am pleased to confirm our co-insurance partner panel for 2022 is unaltered:
Cover for Terrorism and Legal Expenses will continue to be underwritten by International General Insurance Company (UK) Ltd and DAS Legal Expenses Insurance Company Limited respectively.
What’s coming in 2022?
There are many exciting developments in the pipeline for 2022, including:
- Expansion of our new Business Development Office in Cambridge for additional broker support.
- Upgrades to our existing extranet product suites to enable brokers access to more multi cross class products
- Further new products being distributed through the Acturis platform.
Ian Russell, our Chief Underwriting Officer said “Another year has flown by in a flash, let’s hope we can see the back of Covid-19 during 2022 and get back to normal. I wish everyone a safe, well and enjoyable Christmas and thank you so much for your continued support during 2021”.
Ian Russell
Chief Underwriting Officer
Folgate Insurance Company Ltd
Contact our team on 020-7256-3100 or find our email details here.