BarcelonaA total of 124,631 claims in companies during the year 2022. These are data from the memory of the employers’ association of the insurance sector, Unespa. The number of accidents is increasing, many are fires. Even last spring the Civil Guard sounded the alarm: fires in industrial facilities have increased a lot, especially in recycling companies.
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This high accident rate, however, has its flip side. Many industries fail to take out an insurance policy. “There is a real difficulty”, explains the president of the Council of Associations of Insurance Mediators of Catalonia and president of the Barcelona association, Francesc Santasusana. A few months ago, the president of the Girona college, Jordi Triola, already warned of this problem.
The reason is that insurance companies “do not cover risks” for certain types of companies, points out Santasusana. The most affected sectors are recycling, where obtaining a policy is almost an impossible mission, but also the chemical industries or those in the food sector, especially meat. The problem was raised by mediators in Parliament a few months ago, but for now it seems that no solution has been found.
One of these professionals explains to the ARA how the insurance companies do not want to cover the risks of one of their ships, despite the fact that it complies with all the safety and fire prevention measures required by law. And despite having sought coverage in all the insurance companies in the State, “there was no way”.
The president of the Council of Associations of Mediators also points out a couple of additional problems. On the one hand, reinsurance companies do not want to cover these risks and, as a consequence, insurers do not market this type of policy. “The reinsurers are the ones who have set the guidelines, which are very strict,” explains Francesc Santasusana. On the other hand, since they are not compulsory insurance, they cannot be taken over by the Insurance Compensation Consortium, the public body that covers claims when there is compulsory insurance that no one wants to take out: for example, if if no one wanted to insure the owner of a vehicle, the Consortium would take out the policy because insurance for cars, motorbikes and other vehicles is mandatory.
The reinsurers have set the guidelines, which are very tough”
Francesc Santasusana President of the Council of Associations of Insurance Mediators of Catalonia
Thus, some industries fail to insure their premises or, if they are offered a policy, the price is almost prohibitive or a very high deductible is included. The deductible, in an insurance, is the part of the coverage that is not covered by the insurer and that must be assumed by the insured himself.
In other similar situations, explains the president of the mediators, the insurers had made one pool through which they processed the policies of sectors in which, individually, there was no business. But now for these companies the system does not work. One solution, which does not seem too viable, is self-insurance, explains Santasusana. This system consists of setting aside some money in each financial year and keeping it untouched to deal with any disaster in the future. But this is not a solution, because a disaster can occur tomorrow, without having a cushion ready to deal with it.
“Complying with the legal prevention measures on the part of the companies is not enough to be able to obtain a policy”, regrets Santasusana, who points out that if an insurer agrees to take out a policy, the demands it makes entail an investment that the company does not can assume
Logistics and Chinese impact
In the recent increase in accidents, two aspects stand out. On the one hand, which increasingly affect logistics warehouses. Many have old sandwich panel roofs (the latest generation is fireproof). If this type of roof catches fire, the fire is practically unstoppable, because the flames go inside, and the firefighters have no other solution but to let it burn and prevent the fire from spreading to neighboring buildings. Another problem is now added to this problem: in many of these buildings solar panels have been installed on the roof, and when the entrepreneur wants to insure his self-consumption installation, the insurers do not they do it because they are on a very dangerous roof.
The other aspect that has influenced is China’s decision not to accept, from 2018, waste from third countries. This led to a boom in the recycling industry in Spain. The trade-off, however, is that these wastes are usually highly combustible and therefore increase the risk.
2023-10-22 16:43:20
#industries #insurance
