Australian resellers are facing a clamp down on credit conditions and limits as the leading insurance companies tighten their policies and terms to defend against the global downturn. Last month, credit insurer, Coface, cut select customer limits across high-risk industries, including IT, by 30 per cent. Australia’s three other main credit insurers, QBE, Euler Hermes and Atradius, have also been reviewing customer accounts and terms in a bid to minimise and contain risk.
Coface’s decision saw reseller credit limits slashed across several distributors, including Melbournebased Multimedia Technology, by 30 per cent.
Multimedia has about 700-800 resellers on its books, and up to 60 of them were affected immediately by the changes, general manager, John Hassall, said.
“What it means is if we have a customer with a $100,000 credit limit, and their balance is at $90,000, they’re now on credit hold,” he said. “We can’t do anything about it – we have to deal with it and reduce limits by 30 per cent.”
Although confident of getting past the issue, Hassall flagged the credit crunch as another blow from the global economic downturn. ARN has confirmed another local distributor, who declined to comment for this story, is also negotiating with Coface to avoid similar repercussions.
National marketing and relationship manager for brokerage firm National Credit Insurance (NCI), Terry Duffy, cited an increase in the number of insurance claims lodged since January 2008, with IT consistently representing a larger portion overall. NCI customers come from a range of industries including IT. It received the highest ever number of claims in February.
Although Coface had taken a more wholesale approach to avoid further risk, other insurers are asking organisations to voluntarily surrender credit limits not being used, or subjecting customers to more scrutiny, regulation and frequent reviews.
