BEST INSURANCE COMPANIES

[cris_408518]

NFU are a mutual company still by the way. Part of the profit goes to reducing premiums and not into share holders pockets.

I find NFU price very good.

And a friend has saved a lot of money changeing all his business insurance to NFU.

 

[CliveV]

Hi cris

Nothing intrinsically wrong with being a Mutual - this means that the business or "Society" as they are often known are owned by the policyholders not shareholders.

However, being a Mutual does not ensure fairness and good management. Equitable Life must be probably the worst most recent example.

The problem with a Mutual is that their is no Board of Directors and no shareholders for them to answer to. In fact they seem to be answerable to no one. Had Equitable Life been a PLC then the idiotic decision to renege on promises to policyholders would never have been allowed because it would have to have been done in the open instead of in secret behind those "Mutual" closed doors.

Not having anyone to answer to can result in the most appalling mismanagement. Anyone following Jeff Prestridge's campaigns against the excesses of some of the CEO's of some of the smaller mutual Building Societies will know of some of the others!

That is not to say that the NFU is poor in this respect - it most certainly is not.

But given the choice - when it comes to most things financial the balance of favour I would say is with the PLC's or Limited Companies. They have to stipulate how much of profit is going to be issued as dividend (usually a low %'age)and can go to the shareholders to raise capital when required. The only way a Mutual can raise capital is by holding back bonus from the investing policyholders.

One of the reason why so many policyholders of Standard Life wished for it to demutualise over the past decade or so is because policyholders were being given quite tiny bonus's and the "Free Assets" of the society were enormous.

That made Standard Life probably THE most financially strong Life Office - but policy holders were getting a raw deal compared to other providers, Mutual or PLC. Result - Standard Life is following all the others and demutualising.

So anyone with a With Profits Standard Life policy should hang onto it as a "windfall bonus" is due.

 

[MONKEY1]

Cris/Clive

I think once in a while there is a case which beggars belief - the case of Equitable life was it. You only have a little bit of historical reading to realise that why "mutual societies" were set up. Back in the 1800 and 1900 the poor were encouraged to save often with their big industrialist employer sadly it often wasn't a safe or honest investment the "investment Co" was neither forthcoming with a good return but in the case of some the investments. they disappeared overnight. Very sad as it was some of the very poorest who were affected.

This type of event was the foundation of the forerunner to Co-Operative bank and like many other savings organisations that ran for many years successfully without the need for shareholders or foreign investment. You only have to look at the success of "Nationwide" as an organisation compared with Abbey National which is on its third "rebranding" in five years.

Do you need to be a member of the FTSE to know what is a good customer from a bad one no .(recent event's with loads of banks setting aside money for bad debts tells us that)

Do you need to be work for a mutual or plc to make a good investment for your customer the answer is completely irrespective; we place our trust we accept different levels of risk. But "we" do as Clive rightfully points accept all to often - poor performance it should not be tolerated - Power to the people

Citizen Smith

 

[CliveV]

Agreed! The appalling truth of Equitable Life was that those in charge became so arrogant because of the unchecked power they had, that they actually believed they could lie to policyholders and get away with it. What they did not count on was the Law Lords actually doing their job VERY well and reading up a bit on Contract Law before the case!

Co-operative Bank has always been a good example of a firm that "does what it says on the tin" - tho if you talk to their agents of late it would seem that just as in Equitable Lifes case, the senior management is being infiltrated by people you would not want to buy a second hand car from. This is a shame because from what I hear their salesmen have been given ridiculous targets. A sure-fire recipe for misselling.

I am a great one for history and it is worth remembering that the Mutual Building Society's did not evolve out of some altruistic rationale to "Do good".

They were set up by the then Members of Parliament when the law changed so that anyone who owned a property could vote. In order to secure the votes of the local population these prospective MP's would set up these "Building Society's" to allow people to swap from renting - NO VOTE, to House owner with a loan organised by this nice guy thro' his "Building Society" in exchange for a VOTE.

Now we just have the party in power shifting the boundaries to suit their required demographics and of course postal votes where even tho' it was proved voting fraud took place nothing was done.

 

[Wendy-Norfolk]

Hi cris

Nothing intrinsically wrong with being a Mutual - this means that the business or "Society" as they are often known are owned by the policyholders not shareholders.

However, being a Mutual does not ensure fairness and good management. Equitable Life must be probably the worst most recent example.

The problem with a Mutual is that their is no Board of Directors and no shareholders for them to answer to. In fact they seem to be answerable to no one. Had Equitable Life been a PLC then the idiotic decision to renege on promises to policyholders would never have been allowed because it would have to have been done in the open instead of in secret behind those "Mutual" closed doors.

Not having anyone to answer to can result in the most appalling mismanagement. Anyone following Jeff Prestridge's campaigns against the excesses of some of the CEO's of some of the smaller mutual Building Societies will know of some of the others!

That is not to say that the NFU is poor in this respect - it most certainly is not.

But given the choice - when it comes to most things financial the balance of favour I would say is with the PLC's or Limited Companies. They have to stipulate how much of profit is going to be issued as dividend (usually a low %'age)and can go to the shareholders to raise capital when required. The only way a Mutual can raise capital is by holding back bonus from the investing policyholders.

One of the reason why so many policyholders of Standard Life wished for it to demutualise over the past decade or so is because policyholders were being given quite tiny bonus's and the "Free Assets" of the society were enormous.

That made Standard Life probably THE most financially strong Life Office - but policy holders were getting a raw deal compared to other providers, Mutual or PLC. Result - Standard Life is following all the others and demutualising.

So anyone with a With Profits Standard Life policy should hang onto it as a "windfall bonus" is due.

Yes, and in the meantime all we get is "trying to get rid of you letters" - asking if we would like to continue with such and such policey.....we want our shares!!!....well maybe the money :0)

 

[Guest]

I have been with NFU for 2yrs now and quite happy with it I even got a rebate on my renewal for next year

 

[cris_408518]

I have been with NFU for 2yrs now and quite happy with it I even got a rebate on my renewal for next year

Thanks for the lesson guys, All comes down to good management at the end of the day. NFU reckon the keep prices down by putting money back that would go to share holders. We got better cover than previous top line van issurers and much cheaper. Pay for what you get. My brother borrowed my van and wrote it off in France this spring due to no fault of his own. NFU were top notch, brilliant, fantastic and bent over backwards to help. They went out of their way even offering help to my brother and wife re getting back to England as their car was a write off and with another insurer.

My friends business insurance is much cheaper with NFU and he can also pay them monthly by DD for a very small cost,something his previous insureres would not do on business insurance.

He has insured his Caravan with them now and saved

 

[cris_408518]

SORRY SORRY , I put reply in comments on Yungshians last posting by mistake