The current rural insurance market for larger country houses, castles and stately homes is challenging and too limited with too few insurers willing to underwrite these risks. Properties with reinstatement values under £15m currently have few issues in obtaining cover and value for money as there is competition with many insurers in this space with very good products. However, problems start to occur once a reinstatement value goes above this level and particularly where the properties have multiple usage and are not just family homes.

The problem is the perceived issue of “low frequency high impact” claims i.e, claims don’t happen often but when they do, they are usually very costly. Having done some considerable research over the past 12 months, whilst this opinion is valid up to a point, upon further scrutiny the frequency side of the equation is lower than thought and with modern technology the high impact costs are also not so dramatic.

However, the current very limited group of insurers willing to write these risks are charging very significant premiums and applying some very stringent and expensive risk mitigation factors /improvements, often times with little rationale behind the requests! With this in

mind we thought we would bring a fresh approach to the market and offer an attractive alternative proposition to those caught up in this problem.