Hoyl Underwriting Management (HUM), part of the Hoyl Group, has launched a new facility with its exclusive PI product for regulated firms.

With the cost of PI insurance continuing to escalate, Hoyl believes that the market needs a new approach, which provides both the right level of cover and at the same time rewards financial advisers and mortgage brokers for the quality of the business they write with lower premiums.

Provided businesses have the right controls in place, many different classes of business can be underwritten.

The main features are as follows:

• Premium dependent on individual firm’s performance not on industry past performance
• Continuous policy
• Monthly MI report to assess scope and scale of activities undertaken
• Annual premiums can be adjusted both up and down in line with experience over the full year.
• Premium normally adjusted and fixed at the annual review

Director Paul Barnes said: “We have studied the reasons for the seemingly vicious upward spiral in the pricing of the risk and we believe that our new proactive approach to writing PI insurance will help begin to put a brake on the ever growing costs we have seen over the past five years.”

HUM is looking to work closely with potential clients for PI cover and says it will take an active interest in the activity of clients in the form of a regular monthly report on the scope and scale of their business activities in relation to their advice and the products they recommend.

Barnes said: “Up to now, PI underwriting has been completely retrospective and therefore every time a claim is made, it has tended to relate to a lack of real time information on the nature of the business and the way it is run and managed, which in turn has provoked a Pavlovian response of further restriction and increasing cost.

“We believe that our approach, because we take a very active interest in the ongoing business activity of clients, will mean that not only will insured parties be more aware of the risks, but also that we will be able to offer significant discounts to insured clients, as we begin to get a real picture of their business over time.

“We aim to act as a proactive partner to our clientele, rather than a disinterested third party. Not only do we believe that we can deliver a great product with pricing tapered by our experience of the business, but also become a supplementary and valuable source of compliance data, which will have a considerably beneficial effect on future relationships between intermediary firms and their regulatory bodies.”