The time for mutuals may have returned

Modern mutual protection developed with ship-owner groups in the eighteenth century who were dissatisfied with the cost and scope of the insurance available to them - and they successfully survive until today.

This may be because the availability and price of insurance can still be a problem.

So could other groups profit from following their example? Well, many have - farmers, newsagents, care homes, livery companies, London boroughs for example - and several more are considering

Volatility in premium costs, little appetite to underwrite the risks a group wants to insure and a lack of resource within insurers to fully understand the risks of a particular industry are increasing concerns.

Mutuality provides solutions to these problems. Stability in costs driven by strict underwriting process, risk management performance criteria and the isolation from the claims record of other, less well risk managed, industry groups.

Mutuality also affords the ability to underwrite the increasing number of risks the conventional insurance market declines. The ability to create specialist management with a clear understanding of an industry's risks and deliver a single method of insurance protection rather than the tendency developing in the conventional insurance market of underwriting risks on a mono line basis. The focus of a mutual insurer is to underwrite the generic risks members require rather than what the insurer or insurers require.

Currently the conventional insurance market is unwilling to provide cover for a number of risks and history tends to advise that once these risks are generally excluded they are either excluded forever or replaced by an expensive single mono line option.

The mutual concept offers stability in financial terms and stability in the scope of protection provided.

Additionally, as an 'Industry Risk Club' it allows risk management research and development specific to an industry and a combined defence strategy to that industry's legal liability issues.

Mutual’s are not for profit organisations!