Insurance Industry Announces New Solution for Multi-Occupied buildings.

The Association of British Insurers has announced the launch of a new Fire safety reinsurance facility for multi-occupied buildings. Read more on how this might benefit your landlord’s insurance programme

For many months, Government has been working with the insurance industry to make it easier to insure large multi-occupied properties awaiting fire safety remediation work.

The Association of British Insurers has now announced a new reinsurance facility to improve the position.

Premiums for large, complex sites have increased substantially as the extent of fire safety problems has become clear. Most insurers have reduced their participation in the sector and are not taking on new business.

The new facility is open for business on 1st April 2024. It will only accept business for policies renewing on or after that date.

It will not therefore be available for any of your landlord’s buildings before our 25th March 2025 renewal. Our renewal process for March 2024 is now complete on the existing basis.

5 major insurers, Allianz, Aviva, AXA, RSA and Zurich have joined the scheme. It is hoped that other insurers will join in time.

The scheme gives access to a reinsurance facility from reinsurance company SwissRe.

The intention is twofold, to expand the ability of insurers already underwriting higher risk buildings and to attract more alternative insurers who are not.
It is hoped that the facility will also lead to some easing in current high rates of premium. The facility is not a universal panacea however and will be of most help to large, complex sites awaiting or undergoing remediation.

We will work with our brokers before next renewal to establish which buildings might benefit from this facility. We hope by then that the number of insurers using it will also have increased.

In the meantime, we are not able to answer speculative enquiries on individual buildings.