Insurance Under the Spotlight at Proper Talk 7

A heavyweight panel

The discussion was expertly moderated by Jonathan Channing, who guided a heavyweight panel of specialists through the day’s toughest questions:

• John Batty, Insurance Broker at Bridge Insurance Brokers and Board Director of the British Insurance Brokers Association 

• Kevan Gough, FCA Insurance Regulation Expert at Your Company Matters Ltd

• Jaclyn Mangaroo, Chief Communications Officer at The Property Institute

• Leanne Philp, Head of Group Insurance at Anthem Management

• Dan Lane, Head of Reinstatement Cost Assessments at Earl Kendrick

Together, they tackled the issues that matter most to managing agents, freeholders, RMCs, RTMs, and all leaseholders.

The key themes

The panel didn’t shy away from controversy. Among the biggest talking points:

• Insurance commissions & fair value: With the Leasehold & Freehold Reform Act 2024 clamping down on commission sharing, managing agents must demonstrate that insurance arrangements represent “fair value.” The consensus was clear: transparency and better communication with leaseholders are non-negotiable.

• FCA regulation & stakeholder packs: The panellists agreed that too many agents are arranging insurance without FCA authorisation or RICS DPB exemption, potentially exposing themselves to criminal liability. Rumours circulate that the FCA want the company secretary “loophole” to be shut down. Stakeholder packs, introduced in December 2023, are meant to rebuild trust, but are often mis-used as boilerplate paperwork rather than genuine communication tools – or worse still, not circulated to leaseholders at all. 

• Reinstatement cost assessments (RCAs):  The audience were reminded that the RICS guidance is crystal clear: a major RCA review should be carried out every three years yet, in practice, many blocks go many years without a proper assessment, relying blindly on index linking. The consequences are profound. Up to 70% of buildings are underinsured, according to industry data. That means leaseholders are unknowingly exposed to the dreaded average clause, where insurers reduce payouts proportionally if the declared value is too low. The panel highlighted the pitfalls of desktop-only assessments. While attractive on cost, they often inflate rebuild values without sufficient detail, pushing premiums unnecessarily high and undermining credibility with insurers.

• Escape of water: All panellists contributed to highlighting the scale of the problem — EoW claims account for more than half of all block insurance costs at Anthem Management, with excesses now reaching tens of thousands of pounds. The panel called for proactive plumbing inspections within flats, and leak detection technology for new-builds.

• Training & professionalism: The panellists made the case property managers involved in insurance must meet the Insurance Distribution Directive’s requirement of 15 hours of CPD per year. The audience poll was emphatic: untrained managers should not be allowed to handle insurance at all.

• Specialist cover: From terrorism (still widely misunderstood) to D&O insurance for RMC/RTM directors, the panel urged managers to stop assuming policies are generic. Detail matters –  and wordings vary widely. Common pitfalls concerned unoccupancy, flat roof inspections, asbestos removal, and the lack of subrogation waivers to protect policy holders and their agents.

Audience participation

As ever, Proper Talk kept the energy high with constant questions from the audience, insurance myth-busters and live polls. Attendees left not only with CPD points but with practical takeaways to apply immediately in their roles.

What next?

Proper Talk will return in 2026, with topics to be announced soon. In the meantime, the experts from Proper Talk 7 welcome contact from those who want to go deeper on insurance challenges:

One thing was clear from Proper Talk 7: insurance is no longer a back-office matter. It’s a frontline issue of compliance, affordability and governance – and those who ignore it do so at their peril. Pun intended.

Jonathan Channing, Proper Talk co-founder and moderator, jonathan@jcpropertyconsultancy.com