Insurance
The RFA and its members are committed to upholding the highest standards of residential property management when it comes to delivering insurance products and services to leaseholders.
Highest standards of residential property management
We believe transparency and fair value are best delivered when insurers, brokers and professional freeholders, who through years of experience have a deep understanding of the dynamics of the sector, work together. Professional freeholders have invested significantly in-house to undertake an essential role and are key in supporting both leaseholders and underwriters.
Our members are institutional landlords with sizeable portfolios, meaning they are able to leverage their position in the market to reduce overall cost and attain greater cover for residents compared to those procured on an individual basis.
The current insurance landscape
The building safety crisis
The building safety crisis has uncovered extensive safety defects across residential apartment buildings in England. As a result, leaseholders have seen their insurance premiums increase. While measures have been taken to protect leaseholders, these risks will persist until a building is remediated to updated standards set out in recent law and regulations.
Given building regulations help insurers conclude whether a building is safe or unsafe, premiums will not begin to fall until unsafe buildings are remediated in full by those responsible for fixing them.
To see what the RFA is doing to help expedite building safety outcomes, please click here.
Raising standards across the sector
Following its September 2022 report into insurance in multi-occupancy buildings, the Financial Conduct Authority introduced measures in July 2023 to ensure fair value at all levels of the distribution chain. In December 2023, it implemented a series of mandatory disclosures, ensuring leaseholders have full access to information to provide certainty their interests are considered when designing insurance programmes.
The principles underlying these reforms had been adhered to by the RFA and its members, and we strongly welcome them to ensure all who operate in the sector meet the same high standards across the insurance chain.
The RFA also welcomes the FCA’s recognition of the valuable work that professional freeholders undertake on insurance and will continue to support its work to raise standards whilst promoting how transparency and fair value can be best delivered by working with responsible freeholders.