One in five home insurance claims is rejected, although almost all motor claims are paid out, finds insurance industry body ABI January 26, 2016 One in five (21 per cent) of claims on home insurance during 2013 and 2014 was turned down, according to figures out today from the Association of British Insurers (ABI). The first set of insurance payout statistics ever published by the ABI also revealed that 99 per cent of motor insurance claims were accepted, as [...]
London office rents Tube map: Here’s how much desk space costs across the capital in one simple map January 26, 2016 In the ever wonderful world of things you can map across the routes of the London Underground (other than stations) comes the price of renting a desk across zone 1 in the capital. It’s the newest of all lines, the Jubilee, where office rents cost the most, coming in at £793 for the average office desk each [...]
Say what? It turns out the London doesn’t have the world’s most unaffordable homes – Hong Kong does January 26, 2016 First-time buyers across the London may be struggling to get their hands on a property – but it turns out we don't have the world's most unaffordable homes. That dubious accolade belongs to Hong Kong, where the average home is 19 times people's annual incomes – compared to just 8.5 times in London. Pah. The figures were [...]
Overseas investor interest in London commercial property slows as prices come under pressure January 26, 2016 Investor interest in the UK’s commercial property market recorded its slowest rate of growth in more than two years, according to a survey of the country’s leading surveyors, as demand from foreign buyers waned. In its latest quarterly commercial market report, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) found that buyer enquiries continued to rise in [...]
Investors shunning small and medium sized businesses because of lack of suitably skilled board members, with many venture capital fund managers opting to drop original chief executive January 26, 2016 The UK's small and medium sized businesses are missing out on valuable funding opportunities because they cannot recruit the right skills to their boards. According to a survey of venture capital fund managers released today by executive search firm Intramezzo, 90 per cent said that a strong leadership team was one of their top criteria [...]
The amount of equity withdrawn by remortgaging properties reached £837m in December 2015, while equity release lending hit £1.61bn in 2015 January 26, 2016 Equity release activity became frenzied in the later months of last year, with both equity withdrawn by remortgaging properties and total equity release lending levels reaching dizzying heights. According to figures released today by Legal Marketing Services (LMS), a total of £837m was extracted from properties through remortgaging in December 2015, up 32 per cent compared to £635m in December [...]
Opec begs others to join it in cutting production January 25, 2016 The standoff between Opec and its rivals came to a head today as the cartels secretary-general called on other oil producing countries to put a ceiling on output. Abdalla El-Badri warned that producers would continue to suffer without co-operation to end a supply glut. The call was echoed by a senior Russian oil executive, who said [...]
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi blasts critics of easy money January 25, 2016 European Central Bank (ECB) boss Mario Draghi has hit back at critics of the bank's decisions to keep interest rates low and launch a €1.5 trillion (£1.1 trillion) asset purchase programme. Draghi, who last week hinted interest rates might be cut further, said low interest rates were not punishing savers. He said inflation adjusted returns did not tell this story [...]
Bank of England’s Kristin Forbes: Pay growth is not high enough for an interest rate hike – but probably will be soon January 25, 2016 Wages are not yet growing fast enough to lift inflation, but are likely to accelerate soon, one of the Bank of England's rate-setters will say tomorrow. "Labour costs are not yet at the levels consistent with inflation meeting the two per cent target sustainably in the UK," Kristin Forbes will tell the Henry Jackson Society in Parliament. [...]
UK factories suffer drop in domestic and foreign orders January 25, 2016 UK factories have started the year in bad shape, suffering weak sales growth at home and abroad, new survey figures reveal today. The Confederation of British Industry's (CB) headline total order books balance dropped to a score of minus 15 in January from minus seven in December. The export order balance dropped to minus 22 from minus [...]