Earlier this year we revealed how volumes fell during April for most lines but that cyber was doing exceptionally well with a clear 340% increase in sales.
Comparing data for April 2020 at the height of the lockdown to data from the same period last year, shows that policy volumes fell across the board for most lines except cyber, contractors’ all risks (CAR), pet, residential property owners and mobile phone insurance.
However, caravan and trailer fell by 70% and legal expenses fell by 77%. Employer’s liability schemes saw the biggest fall at 80%. We predicted a bounce back and we were proven right in some areas.
Premiums on the up
The results of our bi-annual SchemeServe Index, which tracks the trends and performance of the insurance schemes market that we released this month, shows that premiums have risen sharply across many insurance lines.
Premiums for event insurance have increased threefold in the last six months to September. If you account for the average premiums in this sector, since September 2019, they’ve risen from £92 to an eye-watering £804 at renewal.
Other lines that have seen a major increase in premiums at renewal include public liability (up 77% on September 2019 premiums); CAR; cyber and excess of loss liability. The latter three all saw a doubling of premiums, while personal accident also saw a threefold increase.
Changes in lifestyle
As we highlighted earlier, our last index saw caravan and trailer policy volumes fall by 70% but we’ve seen a reversal on that now. Caravan and trailer policy volumes are now up by 255% – reflecting the nation’s demand for staycations.
And who can blame them? Tier restrictions and the nationwide lockdowns are still creating much uncertainty. Even though vaccines have been rolled out, it will be months before travellers are set to holiday with any confidence.
Lockdown and the Tier system has resulted in us staying at home more and the boost in insurance volumes in other lines such as pet and mobile shows us exactly what the nation is doing while it’s (unenthusiastically) embraced social distancing rules. Pet insurance first premium increases have risen 217% while mobile insurance rose 171%.
The future growth areas
But are the premium increases sustainable? And will we see the same level of growth in all these sectors again? Or will our index reveal other growth areas in 2021?
Only time will tell. But that shouldn’t stop you from following the trends, drawing your own conclusions and doing some future forecasting. SchemeServe users have real time access to the data on the SchemeServe platform.
You can continue to analyse it to track these and many other evolving trends. This may give you some insight into how the market will likely change in 2021 and beyond.
If you see a trend and want to launch a new scheme, our agile platform allows you to get a scheme up and running in just a matter of days. You can make any updates (such as rate changes and changes from regulatory demands) quickly and securely.
Why not give it a go today and get ahead of the curve?
Photo by Jasper Garratt on Unsplash
