Insurer picked up car and bike policies.

Markerstudy supported Romford-based Right Choice Insurance Brokers with a £6m gross written premium portfolio after the collapse of Alpha Insurance, Insurance Age can reveal.

“We know the owner Mike Joseph very closely and have worked with him for a number of years,” said Gary Humphreys, group underwriting director at Markerstudy.

“He is one of our key partner brokers and when the issue hit with Alpha he contacted us and said ‘can you help?’ and we did the deal very quickly.”

Portfolio
According to Humphreys, the portfolio covered £6m of gross written premium and was predominantly car insurance with some motorbike also included.

Humphreys praised Joseph for keeping customers “happy and covered” with the solution.

“Mike was on top of the numbers and the figures,” he explained.

“It wasn’t the case that we had to wait for the policy information, he had it all to hand. It was quite an easy one to facilitate.”

Unrated Alpha fell into bankruptcy on 8 May with all policies cancelled instantly. This came just two months after the Danish insurer had gone into solvent liquidation.

The Markerstudy boss detailed that the new policies for Right Choice’s affected customers were set up from the date needed and that the broker will deal with the refunds from Alpha policies separately.

“It was proactive on the part of Right Choice to take the decision that they would get the cover sorted en masse for policyholiders.”

Support
The market has already seen a string of insurers supporting brokers with regard to the Alpha collapse.

As revealed by Insurance Age, Aviva stepped in with telematics specialists Carrot and Cover My Cab moved policies to Gefion Insurance.

“It just shows that the existing market and main brokers, as with Aviva and Carrot, are able to respond quickly and efficiently to help solve these problems,” Humphreys concluded.

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