Irish Financial Services Group offers price drop protection product to homeowners

In the hope to help revive the struggling real estate market, Irish Financial Services Group (IFG) is preparing to offer home buyers the opportunity to purchase insurance against a price drop in the future from the price that they have paid. Home prices have continued to fall for 42 consecutive months since the bottom fell out of the property market after years of careless lending. Since the peak in 2007, the prices have fallen by 43 percent. The offer from IFG would allow house sellers to place up to 20…

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S&P’s downgrade could impact the nation’s insurance industry

Recently, Standard & Poor’s (S&P), a major financial research and analysis company based in the U.S., downgraded the U.S. government debt. The firm now classifies the nation’s finances as having a “negative” outlook. S&P’s actions have spurred the nation’s insurance and finance companies to take another look at their practices and portfolios, keen to spot any compliance violations spawned from the downgrade. The search for such violations has been slow going so far, as the U.S.’ long-term ratings have never before been downgraded. The downgrade has left many major insurance…

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