New Zealand’s largest insurer of churches and heritage buildings announced yesterday that it would stop offering earthquake coverage throughout the country.
The British-owned Ansvar Insurance suffered $700 million worth of losses in the Christchurch earthquakes, including losses on the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals and the Christchurch Arts Centre.
It is the first insurer to stop offering earthquake coverage nationally since the disasters, which are expected to cost insurers more than $15 billion.
There is another report here I saw earlier on Peter Carrell’s blog
[blockquote]Because The Ecclesiastical Group, which brought the Ansvar business in New Zealand and Australia in 1998, was set up by the Church of England in 1896, and is the main insurer to this day of British churches.
According to Michael Tripp, the CEO of The Ecclesiastical Group, the Canterbury quakes “have produced the Group’s biggest ever series of losses.
“Although we are well protected by our reinsurance programmes, we have nevertheless experienced gross claims… of over 250 million pounds sterling.â€[/blockquote]
So once again, a church connected entity, has managed to overexpand from its traditional areas and instead of diversifying risk, has managed to concentrate it. As a consequence Ecclesiastical Insurance Group has sustained losses from earthquake damage not only in New Zealand, but looking at their last report also in Haiti and in Chile.
The group is owned by The CofE charity Allchurches Trust! Nick Baines has just retired from its board to become Bishop of Bradford. I don’t think we have heard the last of this latest example of risky over expansion.