The Property Council’s Retirement Living Council is to be congratulated for its diligence in finding what the operators wanted – a preferred industry insurance partner.
With increases in village insurance premiums and premium excess, driven by the increasing number and severity of fire, floods, storm damage and the continuing impact of COVID-19 hurting many operators, let’s hope this brings at least stability to insurance premiums for the sector.
Insurance is often one of the larger line items in a village budget, and rises in premiums have significant impacts on an operator’s bottom line.
Insurance brokers across the board clearly communicated that the retirement living industry needs to improve using data to create a comprehensive risk-management profile.
Basically, the industry needs to help itself if it wants to see fairer premiums.
Equally the fact that the insurance industry now realises it wrongly lumps retirement living communities together with residential aged care homes is also a good sign that things are looking up.
As long as insurance premiums are kept stable, will it matter that the Property Council will receive a commission for every premium brokered by the preferred industry insurance partner?
Time will tell.
