Access Underwriting

Access Underwriting are able to offer a choice of insurance providers and packages from tailored ones to suit your individual needs to bundled packages. These packages might typically allow you to obtain wider cover and protection for little or no additional cost when compared to a tailored package.

We are experts in the non-profit sector and, in addition to straightforward policies, are able to deal with technical queries for specialist areas such as abuse insurance, business interruption insurance, needle exchange insurance, homeless hostel insurance, tour operators and professional advice risks, to name a few. So whether you have a property, continuity, liability, trustee, travel, media, indemnity, professional or management risk and you want to look into the insurance costs, please contact us to discuss the best way to transfer your risk. We are appointed by several umbrella groups to provide insurance services to their members and welcome enquiries of this nature.

We have insurance partners who are long established, financially strong, have empathy with the charity and non profit sector and are honouring the age old tradition of calculating premiums which reflect the nature of the risk that your operation presents to the insurance pool and paying claims from the collective pool of those premiums. Our insurance partners provide excellent claims services to fulfill the contract they have with you.

Our Brochure

Please click on the link below to view our short Company presentation highlighting why you should choose Access Insurance Services.

Acrobat presentation: Access Insurance Brochure.pdf. After all, in excess of 1250 new clients since 2002 can’t be wrong!

Customer Comments:

Eileen Cooper — Milton Keynes Christian Foundation
Very responsive, friendly and efficient and carried out a full and thorough review. We feel happy that a sector specialist is looking after our insurance requirements.

Peter Chapman — Shekinah Mission
Friendly, always helpful and find the best prices. Access Insurance concentrate on charities and know the homeless sector.

Phil Coles — Canaan Trust
Very understanding of our requirements and their knowledge proved most beneficial to ensuring we have the cover appropriate to our needs and work. The price and cover have been very competitive and the service excellent, timely, helpful, courteous and professional at all times.

Paul Cornell — St Johns Housing Trust
We have found Access Insurance to be helpful, professional and extremely supportive in helping us drive down some of the necessary costs of insurance for our charity.

In The Press,

“Any charity or voluntary organisation that does not employ its own dedicated risk manager would probably be wise to consult a specialist insurance broker. It may be necessary for a broker to carry out a full assessment exercise to establish a charity‘s needs, examining all its activities and exposures. One organization that has benefited from this approach is St John’s Housing Trust, which provides support services to homeless people in Lowestoft, Suffolk. Operations manager Paul Cornell joined the charity in 2003 during a period of rapid growth, when turnover practically doubled to reach seven figures. He found that the charity’s existing insurers, which had been in place prior to his arrival, were unwilling to make necessary changes to the cover. “They never seemed to understand the risks inherent to our client group, and I could never persuade anyone to come round and look around the projects.” says Cornell. “I carried on with them the first year, because their renewal quote arrived just before the renewal date, but in 2005 I started to look elsewhere. Even then companies were either declining us, or didn’t want to come and look at what we do. ”The broker Access Underwriting made a better impression. “They actually came out and spent a day talking about the work we do and taking a detailed look, on a project by project basis, to get us a quote that really reflected what we needed – and was cheaper than what we had before. It now appears to me that we’ve got a more detailed policy than previously, at a lower cost. I fully expect them to come back this year and see what’s changed before we get a renewal quote because that’s what it’s all about; insurers taking the time to come along to see what we do, and understand what they‘re insuring.”

Of course, a site visit is not always necessary, and it may be possible to get a detailed, meaningful quote on a specialist broker’s website. But what is important is that the insurer has a clear picture of the charity’s activities and risks before it provides a quote. It also helps if the quote and policy documents are written in something approaching plain English. When Clive Fisher joined the management committee at medical charity the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society (BRPS) in 2006, and took charge of the organisation’s insurance arrangements, he found the documents relating to existing policies quite incomprehensible. The charity is now also insured through Access. “You need clarity about what you’re really insured for,” says Fisher. “Access asked me to go through what the insurance needs were, how large the charity was and what we did – that was done over the phone. Then the proposals were sent. They were very clear, which enabled me to say what we did and didn’t need, and they then fine-tuned it to meet our requirements.” Extracted from the CBG Article Covering All Angles by David Adams

We welcome requests for tenders for large risks as we have a dedicated team for this part of the sector. For small charities you can apply on-line where the costs are kept to a minimum.

To find out what Access Underwriting can do for you, please contact us on 0208 651 9638 or via our website www.charityinsurance.co.uk.