Resilience Will Lead to Future Growth

The role of Insurance Premium Finance

It’s been a unique and challenging period for everyone. Despite this, the insurance industry has shown incredible resilience working tirelessly to provide vital, accessible protection during Covid-19. In this short article Tara Waite, Premium Credit’s Chief Executive Officer for Ireland and the UK, outlines how Brokers Ireland’s accredited Insurance Premium Finance provider is effectively supporting its broker partners and their customers during these unprecedented times.

As widely reported, Covid-19 has created a level of social and economic stress across the entire world that has not been experienced since World War Two. Much like then, Ireland and the UK have both shown great fortitude during the pandemic.

From a financial perspective those who have managed capital well, whilst adapting to the new economic conditions created by Covid, have developed a strong position from which to build the future. When it comes to buying vital services like insurance cover, premium finance is one increasingly popular option being used to great effect by businesses and individuals alike.

Premium Finance – an effective payment option

In a time when strong cash flow is needed more than ever, premium finance (PF) allows increased access to valuable insurance cover at the right level, at the right time and in an affordable manner. PF takes away the need for brokers’ customers to pay for cover in one large lump sum, allowing them to spread the cost of annual insurance premiums over convenient monthly payments, freeing up cash so it can be spent in other important areas.

Throughout Covid-19, Premium Credit has remained focused on providing uninterrupted PF payment solutions. Since the lockdown was first introduced, many years of significant, tech-based investment enabled us to maintain our service to partners and customers whilst decamping our people from the office safely without reducing the quality of the service we provide.

As the vaccine rolls out further and normality returns, we continue to work at pace to provide relevant, effective, compliant and digitally led insurance payment solutions and help drive profitable growth for our partners and the best possible experience for their customers. An excellent example of this has been the unrivalled success of our online ejourney app that removes the need for paper and post and the associated manual activities for partners whilst streamlining the overall customer experience journey.

New opportunities and increased demand for premium finance

As reported in last year’s Premium Credit Insurance Index 51% of SMEs had stopped paying for a range of business insurance policies with employers’ liability insurance the most ‘cut’ from a list including business property cover, professional indemnity and cyber. Nearly one in five (19%) of SMEs stopped paying for business interruption insurance.  The challenges to businesses from a lack of protection can, however be easily addressed through finding an alternative way of paying for cover through Premium Finance.

The months and years ahead will be testing, I have no doubt, but there are solutions. We are committed to our purpose to proudly support our community of customers and partners in creating opportunities through convenient payments. Our partnership with Brokers Ireland is really important; we are here to support you during these testing times. We’re here to help.

If you would like to find out more about Premium Credit’s award winning PF solutions, their team of specialists will be pleased to speak with you.

T: 0818 300095

www.premiumcredit.ie