Because insurance premiums are based on statistics (and I would imagine nowadays a real person doesn't get involved in the calculations).
Echo Arena fire Hundreds of cars destroyed
- Thread starter Narj
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A one-off event is an event. Statistically, that area is now more prone to a loss.
As an underwriter, how would you deal with this going forward? A place where there was previously a reasonably well-understood risk that has now seen a minor yet incredibly costly risk manifest?
Well I assumed that insurance premiums would incorporate the cost of random events across premiums country-wide. In other words, not tied to the area in which they occurred.
Some risks absolutely can be tied to a geographical area. Such as crime rates, or houses directly under a busy flight-path.
Other events are so random that it seems odd to tie them to the area in which they occurred. I had assumed that the risk of such random one-off events would be spread across everybody's premiums.
Its likely that all the claims will eventually end up going against the policy of the first car which caught fire.
If I remember my claims terminology correctly that is the "proximate cause" and all other losses can be tied back to this one event. The insurer in question will most likely have some of CAT / single event reinsurance cover so the majority of the cost will end up being borne by the reinsurance market as opposed by the UK Motor Insurance market in general, although its likely the insurer will see a spike in its XOL reinsurance premiums.
Having said that, even if we say 1500 cars at an average value of £10'000, which is way above average, you're only looking at a £15m claim. A single injury claim which results in lifetime care dependency can easily come to far more than this.
I imagine in practice, people will need to claim from their insurer and pay their excess, the insurer will then instigate subrogation proceedings against the insurer of the original vehicle and once these are successful then the customers should have their excess repaid and the claim recorded as Non-Fault on their record.
Thats just how I imagine it should work, unsure if that will happen.
If I remember my claims terminology correctly that is the "proximate cause" and all other losses can be tied back to this one event. The insurer in question will most likely have some of CAT / single event reinsurance cover so the majority of the cost will end up being borne by the reinsurance market as opposed by the UK Motor Insurance market in general, although its likely the insurer will see a spike in its XOL reinsurance premiums.
Having said that, even if we say 1500 cars at an average value of £10'000, which is way above average, you're only looking at a £15m claim. A single injury claim which results in lifetime care dependency can easily come to far more than this.
I imagine in practice, people will need to claim from their insurer and pay their excess, the insurer will then instigate subrogation proceedings against the insurer of the original vehicle and once these are successful then the customers should have their excess repaid and the claim recorded as Non-Fault on their record.
Thats just how I imagine it should work, unsure if that will happen.
Plus the cost of replacing the entire building lol.
Fair point - and the added loss of revenue for the car park operator.
Even if it runs £50m though, most of that will be borne by the reinsurance market.
Even the big UK motor insurers run pretty low retentions, its been a while since I looked at anybodys stat accounts, but I think even a big player like Admiral runs only a £5m retention, so only the first £5m hits them directly, the rest will ultimately be recoverable from their reinsurance panel.
Soldato
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The only way the building owners could be culpable is if the fire regulations weren't met (Fire alarm not functional, sprinkler system not functional etc..) else it would surely have to be each individual insurance policy.
Isn't it a concrete multistorey carpark?
I'm sure there's some damage but replacing the whole building?
Concrete expands under extreme heat and can have its integrity affected - in a building like this I suspect they'd rather just pull it down than take a chance and/or spend a lot of money on testing.
I'd guess if it was a smaller fire they'd just get the structural engineers in for due diligence but in a case like this another story.
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Yeah but it's partially collapsed due to the heat, there's no chance they can repair a half collapsed concrete multistory (or at least it wouldn't be economically viable).
From what the fire service have said the fire would have been perfectly containable but they were unable to fight it properly due to austerity cuts. That implies to me that the building itself functioned as expected.
Expand the picture here - the floor is gone on some decks with just the rebar left (which looks warped as well)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ol-multistorey-car-park-fire-horse-show#img-1
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ol-multistorey-car-park-fire-horse-show#img-1
indeed, blowing up multiple cars is indeed something people do/did in GTA - people generally did plenty of silly things once completing the storyline mission... I guess we have online play these days to allow people to carry on enjoying the game but back in the day people would find other ways to muck around in the sandbox world once they got tired of killing hookers...
I'm not sure if I'm the only one wondering this, how did so many cars get destroyed!?
I can't imagine fires spreading so fast, especially on multiple levels of car park.
Do we know what was in the original car to set all this off?
This story is suspicious and it sounds like we're not being told the whole story.
I can't imagine fires spreading so fast, especially on multiple levels of car park.
Do we know what was in the original car to set all this off?
This story is suspicious and it sounds like we're not being told the whole story.
The same thing that was in the other 1399 cars unless you think one car was able to ignite them all personally.
A multistory car park is well ventilated because of fumes in normal use but also partially contained with layers so with a car fire it traps heat and feeds air like a giant furnace.
