The Queen’s speech highlighted a focus on resilience and recovery, clearly pertinent to the BIBA Conference 2021 and is a positive approach to overcoming the country’s current challenges.
We welcome the planned appointment of a Building Safety Regulator. We hope this will deliver improved building standards and ensure the safety of high- rise residential buildings, while at the same time assist the insurance industry to deliver financial protection that will help those working on and living in these buildings.
Flooding has become a perennial risk in the UK and affects many homes and businesses. Those responsible for improvements to the planning process must guard against eroding requirements for planning authorities to take into account flood risk and avoid inappropriate developments in areas at risk of flooding. A sensible approach would be to direct development away from areas of highest risk of flood so that that the insurance industry can provide suitable protection for coming new-build homes and commercial premises.
It was pleasing to hear about legislation that sets binding environmental targets. We believe in a sustainable future and the part that the insurance sectors can play in supporting sustainable trading, green finance, green repair and remediation and will be supporting our members with a sustainability toolkit.
We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and are delighted to see a commitment to bring the covenant into law. It is vital to highlight how insurance brokers can help service personnel to get the insurance protection they need.
Government has already committed to removing the effects of the European Court of Justice’s Vnuk ruling from UK law and we ask for confirmation as to when the necessary changes to legislation will be made. Unfortunately the planned regulatory programme missed the opportunity to clarify the motor insurance issues that are highlighted in our 2021 Manifesto. [ https://view.publitas.com/biba/biba-manifesto-2021/page/29 ] Rest assured we will continue to campaign on these and other key broker considerations.