Newsletter

Issue 23 - Summer 2010

News and Information From

Reid Hamilton Insurance Brokers
Duncan Woodcock

Welcome to this summer edition of “At Your Service”. At the time of writing I must say that the seasonal weather seems reasonably bearable for a change – a long way on from that ghastly winter that we all suffered. Seasonal weather events have a massive impact upon us and we were kept very busy over the hard winter with claims for road accidents, floods and the general effects of the cold which lasted for many weeks.

We have had another Reid Hamilton “happy event” with Lynsay Davies (now Lynsay Green) getting married in May. So we now have three Woodcocks, two Greens (no relation), a Carol and a Carole. Confused? Try working here!

There is a charitable event for CancerCare to tell you about, along with news of our sponsorship of Moorside School’s Make-A-Wish fundraising. After 18 years I’ve decided to stand down as a governor at Moorside to turn my hand to something else, so if anyone has any ideas, do let me know.

Thank you very much to those clients who kindly supported our Bay Radio advertising with testimonials. You can read about that in a separate article, but we’ve all had our legs pulled about our voice-overs for the adverts, though I must say that they have been very successful and certainly have brought Reid Hamilton to a wider audience.

As I have said before, if you would like your business featuring in our Newsletter, or you have something that would be of interest to our readers, do please let me know and I’ll be pleased to speak to you.


So thank you all for your business support. We will continue to make sure that we do the very best we can to offer the right cover to you at the right price, and to give a friendly, personal service. It is our great pleasure to deal with so many brilliant clients locally, and indeed a few worldwide too, so thanks to all of you.

Duncan Woodcock's Signature

Duncan Woodcock MA
(Managing Director)
wedding-bells Baby news

If you have read our Newsletter over recent years you will know that we are proud of our ability to comply with FSA regulations. Indeed not only did we pass an FSA Treating Customers Fairly Audit with flying colours last year, but also have been selected as a placement site for FSA staff to gain experience of insurance broking in the field.
It is with some horror then that we must report that we have received our invoice from the FSA for annual fees and levies, which has this year doubled to a massive £5,253.45, this for a business employing just 12 staff. The underlying increase is due to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme Levy we are compelled to pay increasing from just over £400 last year to over £3,200 this time. This is to provide funds for compensation arising out of the mis-selling of Payment Protection Plans and Mortgages by Banks and Building Societies - financial services that Reid Hamilton does not even offer!
We already carry more than adequate Professional Indemnity Insurance to cover our own activities, so there seems to be a basic unfairness in compelling a small, efficient private company to contribute a compulsory levy to deal with the inherent bad practice of large financial institutions.
This underlines why the current system of regulation is so heavy-handed and unfair, and why the new government is right to dismantle this monolith and replace it with something more appropriate.
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