Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 13
13
We are concerned by the lack of progress on keeping residents’ building insurance costs reasonable...
Recommendation
We are concerned by the lack of progress on keeping residents’ building insurance costs reasonable during the period when their buildings are being remediated. The Government has been engaging with the insurance industry for months, and all the while leaseholders are seeing their premiums skyrocket—yet another cost they are facing for a problem not of their making—or worse, living in uninsured buildings. The time has come for the Government to consider setting a deadline for the insurance industry to act. If that deadline is not met, the Government should intervene to require industry to resolve the problem of eye-watering building insurance premiums. (Paragraph 40) The wider impacts of the cladding crisis
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
On 28 January, the Secretary of State called on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to review buildings insurance premiums for people living in medium and high-rise blocks of flats. Although the initial request for a review came from the Department, the scope of the review will be defined by the FCA as the independent regulator of the financial services sector. The FCA are focusing their attention on areas where they observe unfair or unexplained prices for leaseholders. The FCA has met with Chief Executives of key insurers and insurance brokers to explain their expectations for engagement in the review and affirm their regulatory expectations. The FCA is currently collecting data on market conditions to inform their review, and we understand that the FCA and CMA will provide recommendations in summer 2022.