Continuing Professional Development (CPD) can be expensive, but Deacon can help reduce your costs by providing specialist training on block insurance.
Residential property managers require a remarkably broad range of knowledge to help keep blocks running safely, efficiently and harmoniously. With insurance often the biggest cost on a service charge bill, it’s a key topic for property managers. So, Deacon is offering free CPD-accredited training on this specialist topic for managing agents.
You will already know that CPD can be essential to keep you and your colleagues and staff up to speed. Members of the IRPM have to record 15 CPD hours per year: the RICs asks for at least 10 hours of formal training per year, and 20 hours in total.
Fees for many training courses can typically cost upwards of £400+VAT per day, to which you often have to add travel costs and time out of the office.
Alternatively, a free full or half-day course at your own offices on block insurance from the specialists at Deacon can add hugely to your in-house knowledge bank. The offer becomes even more valuable when the session is tailored specifically to the needs of your business portfolio and the skill set and experience of your staff.
What will we cover?
We stick to what we know: arranging and managing blocks of flats insurance. We’ve been doing it for more than 32 years..
Often we are asked to focus on claims management, because that can be time consuming for managing agents. We are happy to do that but we also like to help delegates to understand the importance of setting up a policy correctly in the first place.
If all the information insurers hold on the block is accurate and up to date, and the building is fairly recently surveyed and valued, then the policy can be tailored to provide suitable cover and help avoid disputed claims.
As brokers, we work hard to ask all the necessary questions before issuing a policy, but as managing agents, you need to have an awareness of what is relevant. Examples are: type of construction (even a small area flat roof, for instance); occupancy (owner occupied, sub-let or both and in what proportion?), claims history (it will be on record somewhere, even if you change insurer) etc. You can see more about duties of disclosure HERE.
How good is Deacon training?
Most of our courses are delivered by Deacon’s account directors Fernando Valdivielso, Andy Blackmore and Martin Kent-Heath. The courses are accredited for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) qualifying hours, as well as being recognised by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Institute of Residential Property Management (IRPM).
The UK’s CPD certification Service is a badge of quality of CPD material. While most institutional and professional bodies will call on their members to undertake CPD, they do not dictate what courses to take or oversee their quality. This is where CPD Certification comes in with a rigorous and impartial assessment process to ensure that the content of courses across all industries and professions can meet delegate needs and cannot be just sales messages in disguise.
Who can apply for free Deacon CPD training?
We welcome applications from active managing agents throughout the country. Subject to availability, we can invite you to our Bournemouth offices or, if you have a team to train, we can come to you. In that case, we will be happy to tailor the half or full-day content to your business.
To find out more email fernando.valdivielso@deacon.co.uk or andy.blackmore@deacon.co.uk
The opinions and views expressed in the above articles are those of the author only and are for guidance purposes only. The authors disclaim any liability for reliance upon those opinions and would encourage readers to rely upon more than one source before making a decision based on the information.
Reviewed 29 July 2022
FP601-2018