For guidance and support on insurance cover/payments during COVID-19, click here to read our FAQs
The High Court's ruling on the FCA's test case, which sought legal clarity on business interruption insurance, provides some clarification on issues that were a source of confusion and concern for small business policyholders affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The English High Court judgment on a case brought by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on business interruption (BI) insurance coverage is expected on 15 September at 10:30am.
We’re excited to announce the shortlist for his quarter's Pauline Uludag Employee of the Year Award. To recognise the achievement, the 6 worthy nominees below have each been rewarded, while the overall winner is set to receive an even bigger reward at the end of the month.
The aim of our employee awards is to celebrate staff excellence across the business throughout the year.
The staff who appear on the shortlist for the prestigious Pauline Uludag Award were nominated by their colleagues and exemplify CLEAR’s professional ethos, making exceptional contributions to the business during the pandemic — so a big congratulations to those nominated!
Check out the complete shortlist below, listed in alphabetical order, along with a brief summary of the reason given for their nomination:
Carly was nominated for being a considerate, thoughtful and efficient team member and who goes above and beyond to find solutions to any problem.
Her lovely demeanour and great sense of positivity has been refreshing to colleagues in these difficult times and those that get to work with her find it a truly positive experience.
Caroline has led a Covid-19 specialist team and helped coordinate processes with the other offices/branches to centralise all the Covid claims data. She has attended our specialist Covid-related internal briefing webinars as part of this role and helped analyse the wordings and exclusions for the different classes of business.
Caroline has without doubt gone beyond the expectations of her role to research and provide excellent technical claims handling and technical advice to our claims team.
Caroline is the go to person for interpretations of insurance policies regarding potential Covid claims and by providing support has allowed the Claims team to be ready for whatever new developments and outcomes occur of the FCA test case.
Chris has worked unstintingly hard ever since joining CLEAR. During the last 6 months he stood in following the departure of the department manager and has kept our investors informed with management information during the early Covid-19 period.
With the arrival of a new CFO, Chris has provided support and contributed massively to audits and forecasting models for future acquisitions, all the time remaining cheerful throughout. Named as an unsung hero by colleagues.
Elaine has been described as instrumental by colleagues in the transition stage of Morrison Insurance joining The Clear Group. She has been involved in many aspects of the business including compliance, HR, finance, operations, and premises and continues to strive to learn new systems, deal with the challenges of integration and present new and innovative solutions. Elaine was described by a colleague as ‘a tremendous asset for CLEAR in the future’.
Nick has been nominated for the establishment and continued daily efforts of our specialist Covid-related team. Nick used his initiative to establish this team and to provide a support network across the business for Covid-related matters. Nick’s open and approachable manner has been highly praised with some saying they felt they would have been lost throughout the pandemic without the support of this team.
The team has given people across the business the opportunity to meet new colleagues throughout the group and open channels of communication that may have alternatively been hard to establish.
In addition to her day job, Vikki has taken on the role as mentor to the junior colleagues in the team. Guiding and training them during the lockdown period remotely, it is understood by those that work closely with Vikki that she always puts team members before herself.
Her regular check-ins to make sure people are OK, both in terms of work and personally are really appreciated. As the markets started trading, Vikki has also been the team member that attended the office to complete the team's printing for clients that didn’t have emails.
Our staff will be voting for the winner up until 5pm, Friday 18th September. Stay tuned for the end of the month when we’ll be announcing the overall winner across our social channels. To stay updated make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
The annual Cockpit Arts/CLEAR Insurance Award supports professional designer-makers who have been in business for less than three years and have aspirations to develop their craft trade.
The winner of the award receives a match funded studio space at Cockpit arts worth £2,500* — plus a specialist insurance package tailored for their needs from us at CLEAR.
2019’s winner, ceramic artist Ula Saniawa, recently completed her full year at Cockpit Arts. In the interview below she reflects on the impact the award has had across her work and life:
Melanie Barker is our new Head of Learning and Development, a role created earlier this year. We chatted with her about all things Learning and Development, as well as what it means for the company, our staff, and our clients. Find out how Melanie is helping us affect positive change:
We've already written about a 'hardening' insurance market and how, until recently, this was primarily confined to the supply of professional indemnity insurance (PII). However, conditions across the whole insurance sector are now becoming more challenging as insurers are forced to increase premiums, reduce their presence in specific markets or withdraw from them altogether because they are no longer financially viable.
At CLEAR, we are delighted to announce an exciting new partnership with Future Frontiers.
Future Frontiers is an award-winning charity that exists to ensure 16 to 18-year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds with limited opportunities fulfill their potential - at school and when transitioning to education, employment or training.
The advent of Covid-19 has given the property sector much to think about. While attention is focused on finding solutions to multiple challenges, from the economic fallout from lockdown to ensuring spaces comply with social distancing, there are several insurance issues which should not be overlooked. In many respects, risk has changed – for better or worse – and action may need to be taken accordingly in order to satisfy any relevant policy conditions, ensure cover is adequate and to avoid paying unnecessarily inflated premiums. Our property specialist, James King, recently caught up with Estates Gazette to discuss this in more depth:
During the lockdown, many insurers extended or relaxed their policy conditions for unoccupied properties. This situation has changed, potentially affecting anyone who owns or rents a property that currently remains unoccupied.
If you think this may include you, please continue reading.
With the majority of businesses now working remotely, laptops have replaced desktops for many.
This change in equipment presents additional risks for data security that may harm your business.
We have outlined how to identify and reduce the likelihood of data loss via laptop thefts in this 3-step guide:
This week, we announced that MPW Insurance Brokers, an organisation with more than 30 years of experience in arranging specialist insurance for the construction industry, has made some changes to reflect its close relationship with the CLEAR Group.
This exciting integration brings a new trading name - CLEAR MPW - and a new logo, making it more obvious that the business’s clients are benefitting from CLEAR’s resources and infrastructure, receiving a faster, more efficient service from the same MPW team that they’re already familiar with. This is an exciting stepping stone towards a full trading name change to Clear Insurance Management at a later date.
To discuss the integration and what it means for the newly minted CLEAR MPW, their team, and their clients, we sat down with founder and Managing Director Andy Webb.
There has been much confusion over the COVID-19 crisis and the response from insurers. In an attempt to gain greater clarity over policy cover the FCA has started a High Court action against a number of insurers. We have had a number of queries from our customers regarding the test case and what it means for commercial policyholders; we hope this note will help you to understand the process and how it might affect you.
Businesses across the UK are now returning to the workplace, meaning many workers will now be commuting again for the first time since March.
As with ensuring offices and other work environments are as safe as possible, proactivity is the key to supporting staff safety as they commute. It’s worth considering adjusting your working practices, as well as your rules and guidance for staff, to help ensure they’re as safe as possible.
Here, we’ve compiled 5 key factors to consider as you do this:
CLEAR is here to help you throughout the crisis and lockdown. So, we've created a hub of useful COVID-19 information including business guides and useful downloads and the frequently asked questions (FAQs) we've been receiving about insurance cover and payments.
So, now you can find all of the important and useful guidance you need in one place. Click here to visit our COVID-19 hub.
Many businesses across the UK will be preparing to reopen and allow staff to return to work as lockdown restrictions ease. However, employers, the self-employed, and landlords must take steps to identify and control the risk of Legionella before employees and the public re-enter their premises.
With lockdown beginning to ease, many employers are now need to begin planning for what is likely to be a staged return to the workplace.
If you’re among them, we’ve published a full guide to creating your ‘Return To Work’ action plan. No time to read the guide yet? We've prepared a summary of the key areas it covers:
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it's that if a business is to ride out a major crisis and continue trading, it needs a risk management plan.
That's not to say that a risk management plan is a silver bullet. But without one, you can't hope to understand how your business might suffer and, crucially, how it might adapt and respond to minimise disruption to its operations.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the safety of CLEAR’s staff and clients has been of paramount importance.
As the lockdown has continued to evolve, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide an update on how we are continuing to support both.
CLEAR are pleased to announce the board appointments of Tim Money as Chief Financial Officer and Nick Gallimore as Group Operations Director, both subject to FCA approval.
COVID-19 has affected all elements of business practice, and onboarding is no exception.
With remote work now the norm in many sectors, business owners must refine their onboarding strategy to provide new employees with a comprehensive overview of the business, its challenges and its opportunities - and all while cultivating a feeling of belonging.
Achieving this at a time when new employees might not meet a colleague face-to-face for many months is difficult, so onboarding should begin at the moment an offer is made.
Here are our best practice guidelines to help you in this new process:
As an intermediary, distributing insurers’ products, we have to stand out from the crowd by maintaining distinctive values. As we grow we talk about what this means all the time, because strongly held, shared values can be powerful in influencing how we behave and the service we provide.
So in our business planning, our team gatherings and day to day activities we keep a focus on our:
