Material Damage and Business Interruption – 1 January 2017 Renewal
As you will be aware, preparations for the 1 January 2017 renewal of our Material Damage and Business Interruption insurance were delayed by the 14 November 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. About four weeks went by while domestic and international insurers considered the earthquakes effect, for us this meant a delay of four weeks before we were able to renew the process of negotiating terms and conditions for our renewal. At the end of this time, and as a result of the earthquake, our domestic insurer (QBE) offered general market terms and conditions in respect to earthquake deductibles while our international insurers (Lloyd’s) continued to offer general market terms and conditions but with the advantage of a cap of $150,000 on their deductible for our large sites. This ultimately meant that the All Churches collaboration decided that 70% of our renewal would be placed with Lloyd’s and 30% would be placed with QBE. Meaning that we were able to keep the majority of our market advantage and maintain the All Churches strategy of being insured by multiple A rated insurers.
Despite the earthquake, further reductions to non Natural Disaster premiums were secured due to our favourable overall claims experience. It should be noted that the impact of the Kaikoura earthquake may see some reinsurers increasing Natural Disaster premiums through 2017.
Outside of this, other policy changes are:
- Residential buildings and contents excess has been reduced to $250 (remains at $1,000 for all other claims except Natural Disaster)
- ‘Unlawful Substances’ cover added. This applies to buildings and contents damage from P labs etc. See the policy for full details.
Concordia Underwriting Agency, who are responsible for the renewal negotiations, have sent All Churches members (AIB) a newsletter outlining renewal events and some of the work they will be doing in 2017.
The claims process remains as outlined on our website. Please encourage your parishes and other authorised personnel to follow this process as it generally makes assessment of the claim considerably quicker and smoother.
The 2017 policy and schedule of MDBI cover can be found in the members section of our website. Interested party certificates (for your bank etc.) can be produced on request.
Liability Renewal – 1 April 2017
In the next few days you will receive your liability renewal proposal to complete and return to us prior to 1 March 2017. We require this by then so that the insurer has sufficient time to assess our premium and other terms and conditions. Currently, things are looking positive due to good overall claims experience. Provided that our disclosures do not identify a number of claims that we are not aware of, I think that we can be hopeful of reduced premiums or even better terms and conditions (such as reduced excesses) in 2017/18.
Motor Vehicle Renewal – 1 April 2017
In the next few weeks you will receive notification of your motor vehicle insurance renewal. The first step will be to update existing schedules with any changes required. You can do this at any time or you can wait and update the schedule that we will send shortly.
Board News
Don Baskerville, while remaining the Tikanga Pasifika member on AIB, stood down as chair last year and now plays a role in Concordia, as well as chairing the All Churches Insurance Bureau. Alison Jephson who has been the Tikanga Pakeha member on AIB since 2010, succeeded Don as chair of AIB.
I trust that you all had a restful Christmas and New Year and all the best for 2017 from AIB.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Dave Peters, Executive Director