Using postal areas to work out a risk rating for a house makes sense, but sometimes the result is “postcode blight”. People in affluent, safe areas can be forced to pay higher premiums because their postal town is in a rougher district. Such anomalies arise because most underwriters use only the first part of the postcode, the first three or four numbers and letters, to assess an area’s risk of theft, flood or storm damage. This, along with information about the house and the proposer’s job and lifestyle, forms the basis for the premium.
Improved computer software allows insurance companies to look at the whole postcode and use that information to match a claim history for as few as a dozen houses The result, insurers claim, is more accurate premiums. For some households, that is undoubtedly good news, as their cost of cover will come down For others, the benefits are less clear.

People in urban areas may find that insuring their possessions becomes still more expensive.One insurer using the new system is Liverpool Victoria. The friendly society has installed computer software that rates risks according to the whole postcode. The system ensures that “low risk customers will not subsidise high risk policyholders”.Liverpool Victoria believes it also gives better-value premiums. It cites examples from Insurance Advice that show Liverpool Victoria as the cheapest insurer for three different couples looking for pounds 25,000 of contents cover. In one case it is more than pounds 200 cheaper than the worst performer, in this case Direct Line.The Liverpool Victoria policy has other unusual features. Insurance comes in three tiers, each with higher premiums but extending protection, for example by adding accidental damage cover or cover for personal items away from the home.

The company also calculates the sum insured itself, based on its own estimates for the type of property and the number of occupants. It believes this is fairer than leaving it to householders to estimate the value of their possessions and risk either over or under- insurance.David Stevens, an underwriter, thinks that other insurance companies are certain to adopt similar systems. “It is inevitable that insurers will look to break down ratings into ever-smaller segments. They are going to keep on making deals even if they are eroding value,” she says.. DEREGULATION may have thrown Britain’s telecommunications market open to competition, but the practicalities of breaking into this multi- billion-pound industry are a good deal more complex than the theory. Competing with the likes of BT and Cable & Wireless generally requires a lot of money, not least for financing the advertising needed to remind customers of a newcomer’s arrival. However, Redstone Telecom is set upon taking on the big players through more stealthy means.

Admitting that it does not have the funding to set up its own network, it says it is relying on innovation to make up for its lack of firepower.
The latest evidence of this strategy came last week when it announced that it was launching a national service through, in effect, piggy-backing on the Fibernet network set up to transmit data rather than voice.Graham Cove, managing director of the company, says the move brings it the country’s fifth or sixth largest network, so giving it an edge over such operators as Colt and Scottish Telecom, which are limited to running regional networks. The result is that a business with offices spread between such areas as Scotland, the North-west, London and the West can now see Redstone as a potential telecom service provider alongside the likes of BT, Cable & Wireless Communications and Energis.Nor does the innovation end there. Even from moscow the chief risk to the world seems to be a global recession. Russia’s economic recovery is imperative if that is to be avoided.

This is because Russia could destabilise the post-Cold War order.It is for this reason that unknowns in the West like Yuri Kudimov should interest London. It is pragmatists like him who have the best shot at picking up the pieces of Russia’s economy now that the confidence of the 170 million people here – as expressed by the run on the rouble, down 21 per cent against the dollar on Friday – has been shattered.For all the problems created by the economic crisis, Yuri’s bank remains a going concern It is a bulwark against further chaos. The Duma will decide on Monday if it is to approve Mr Chernomyrdin as Mr Yeltsin’s prime minister and so resolve the political crisis. According to cable news broadcasts I’ve watched here, London is increasingly focused on doomsday scenarios in Russia: social unrest; loose nukes Such concerns seem premature One Russian banker laughed at the idea of a second 1917. “The people are too busy pickling and canning.”Pundits on Western cable have discussed the sabre-rattling of Alexander Lebed, the former general who ran for president unsuccessfully against MrYeltsin in 1996 The army are among those owed $11bn in back pay. But the military man I met here last week, a colonel introduced by a banker, was wearing a smart topcoat with a leather collar.”He doesn’t look ready to revolt,” I said.”His dacha’s next to mine,” the banker replied.As glimpsed from Moscow, indeed, apocalpyse seems possible, but not imminent. People are hoarding food.A friend who has spent an afternoon tracking down butter – ending up with a box of restaurant-size patties – bemoans the fact that Moscow dairies no longer make butter and that the city now imports 60 per cent of its food from abroad.The stand-off between Mr Yeltsin and the Duma remains unresolved.