Expert insight, analysis and commentary across the entire protection industry.
by John Gillman 30/06/10 Category: Comment
John Gilman and Phil Friend share their thoughts on early intervention and why it is not always successful There cannot be an HR Director in the UK who has not had brought to their attention the fact that 'early intervention' can play an important role in returning employees to work in certain cases of sickness absence or disability. Similarly, legions of line managers have been made aware of the importance of managing absence and the processes that need to be adopted in order to do this. Despite all these well-intentioned initiatives, however, in our work with employers and employees we…
read more »
by Stephen Walker 30/06/10 Comment
Leading PMI intermediary and AMII past-chairman Steve Walker laments the imposition of FSA rule on the PMI sector. Will that change now there’s a new team at Number 10?... Back in 2001 the Government received a European Directive from Brussels requiring them to introduce statutory regulation of the general insurance industry by January 2005. The Government, in its infinite wisdom, decided that this was a task for the Treasury who, in turn, decided the FSA was best placed to take this on board. Prior to this the industry had been ably regulated by the GISC (General Insurance Standards Council). The…
read more »
by Peter Barnett 19/06/10 Comment
KISS fans will be ahead of me with the song’s opening lines of ‘I caught the tail of a hurricane and I’ve never been the same’. Protection can’t expect to remain isolated from the economic storms and it’s not just obvious pressures that will shape the market, like getting a share of the shrinking consumer disposable pound and pressure on margins, but also structural issues like capital requirements and the regulatory environment. According to the OBR, the UK 2010-11 borrowing figure is £155bn with the overall public sector net debt expected to rise to £1,376bn by 2014-15. In the emergency…
read more »
by Lucian Camp 16/06/10 Comment
I haven’t told anyone about this before, but about fifteen years ago the FS Good Fairy made one of her rare appearances in my office, and – being an ungenerous sort of fairy – offered me just one wish. I was sorely tempted to make a sort of composite wish which would have involved the uninvention of Arsene Wenger, the avoidance of an interminable era of pointless strife and indecision at White Hart Lane and a very different outcome over the following period in the balance of power between the two giants of north London football. But after some hard…
read more »
by Alan Tyler 25/05/10 Comment
The new coalition government has reached agreement on a common programme with a speed that has astonished many of our European neighbours. In doing so, the welfare reform agenda is unlikely to have delayed them for too long, as in several important areas, the LibDem election manifesto was strangely lacking in policy. However, there is evidence of compromise and more may emerge when the next level of detail is revealed. In truth, there have not been significant differences between all three major parties in what they wanted to achieve, the issues have been how and how quickly to achieve this.…
read more »
