Cambrian to No Longer Service North American Customers Directly

[Donw]

Horstan I wouldn't like you to think that I was tarring all with the same brush. Professional bodies used to guard against dubious practices but this seems to be going by the board more and more. I built a conservatory when I sold the house my solicitor said you will havee to provide indemnity isurance as you have no Building control certificate. When I quoted paragraph and clause of the relevant statute concerning exemptions for conservatories and the limiting conditions she and the buyers solicitors shut up. Surley this is something a conveyancing solicitor should be familiar with? or do they get a bit of commission on the indemnity policy. Things are just as bad elswhere in my own field project managers who will implement a project they know is going to fail because the problem is not attributable to the PM and hitting your dates is more important than the project working! i am glad to be retired and out of all that!

Don

[Horsetan]

Horsetan I wouldn't like you to think that I was tarring all with the same brush...

 

Why not? Everybody else uses the same brush... One more can't hurt!

 

*sigh of resignation*

[TheSignalEngineer]

................. Things are just as bad elswhere in my own field project managers who will implement a project they know is going to fail because the problem is not attributable to the PM and hitting your dates is more important than the project working! i am glad to be retired and out of all that!

Don

 

Me too. The paperwork got so bad that I was doing 90% admin and 10% real work towards getting the job working properly. PII on infrastructure projects was also a nightmare, to the extent that Railtrack offered to arrange it themselves at one time. Imagine what the insurers would say if your actions put a Pendo down the bank at speed.

[autocoach]

I was a little P... Off when I started this thread. Not at Cambrian. At the insurance and legal industry...

 

Actually I can order through Kernow Model Centre who stock Cambrian are not bound (I hope) by the problem of shipping said product to the US. Trouble is I have to convince Kernow to order and stock the C61 kit in order that I can order it (Per Cornish Clay Railway Yahoo group, we determined the C61 is best fit for English China Clay wagons in the 1930's and will fit the POWSides decals. I can add this will complement the Kernow Clay Dries for the pre-Clay Hood period.) They have to go to Cambrian which has to tool up fro a C61 run if they have none in stock. The benefit is that Kernow can deduct VAT whereas Cambrian did not (and I fully understood their rational) and I can use a regular credit card instead of PayPal.

 

This is just going to take a lot longer. On the other hand I have a copy of the 4mm Coal Wagon from Wild Swan and may just make my own.....Double side scribed plastic sheet, Archer rivets and Mainly Trains sole bars and w-irons and other bits....5 Plank, End and Side Door and floor planking longitudinal....I could have a fleet in about the same time....

[meil]

Can I just point out for the benefit of Jol and any others who may have spotted an opportunity for hilarity, that I don't do personal injury, or anything that involves ambulance-chasing.

 

Oddly enough, insurance - as in professional indemnity insurance - has also been the bane of many humble Firms' lives, so I think many of us in the legal profession are just as bitter as you. I had to close my own Firm down last year because the premiums relative to our earnings were quite unaffordable, and my Firm wasn't the only one affected. Many good small Firms have gone to the wall over the last couple of years because of rocketing PII premiums.

 

In many senses, the profession has itself to blame. Years ago, PII used to be the preserve of the Solicitors' Indemnity Fund, and each Solicitor on the Roll paid into this via the annual Practising Certificate renewal fee. So far, so simple. However, some bright spark (at the Law Society I seem to recall) thought it would be a great idea to open up the "market", such as it was, and turn it over to commercial insurance providers. We were sold this deal on the basis that it would be more competitive, and therefore cheaper for everyone. Not suprisingly the profession more or less sleepwalked into voting for the change.

 

For the first year or so, things were relatively stable. At some point however, and perhaps coinciding with the general global financial crisis / economic downturn, premiums rose sharply. A number of insurance providers (one of them Irish) also pulled out of the market just as a new insurance year was about to begin, leaving Firms that they had covered previously high and dry, and scrabbling around for alternative providers who, not surprisingly, spotting a good opportunity to have them over a barrel, knocked premiums up even further. For those who couldn't find a provider, the Assigned Risks Pool (in effect the Solicitors' Regulation Authority's insurer of last resort) agreed in some cases to provide cover but only for a year. This had a knock-on effect, as commercial insurance providers took the attitude that, if you had been in the ARP, then you were somehow an increased risk and therefore not worth covering.

 

One thing you may also not have realised is that the pain doesn't necessarily end when a Firm ceases practice - if you did conveyancing, as my erstwhile Firm did, then it is a mandatory requirement that you have run-off cover in place for at least the next three years after closure. So I am still paying out even though I work for someone else nowadays. The only run-off I can see is the insurance provider running off with the money.

 

It's not all cakes and ale here, you know.

 

How pleased I am that the Bar still has its own mutual insurance fund.