BCP Council is paying out £4.2million a year for insurance and insurance services – but has declined to say in public the cost of claims.

Councillors have been told they will be given the information, but not in a public meeting.

The annual insurance bill includes salaries for a team of six staff and excess costs for claims not paid out of insurance agreements.

Some council assets, including highways, are not covered by insurance at all because companies are unwilling to underwrite the risk, or where they are, the cost is too high to consider.

The council’s audit and governance committee has been told that the current arrangement are based on historic insurance deals with the previous separate Bournemouth and Poole Councils and Dorset Council for the Christchurch area.

A new, over-arching insurance deal for the BCP area is expected to be brought in for the 2023-24 financial year although at the moment the council is unable to say whether it will be any cheaper.

The meeting heard that around 800 claims are dealt each year, ranging from damage to buildings caused by bad weather, motoring claims, and claims for personal injury caused by trips and falls.

Head of audit, Nigel Stannard, told councillors that the insurance claims team were always seeking out ways of reducing risks and if they noticed a trend in claims against the council would suggest ways to reduce the risk.

He said an example might be where damage claims were brought involving council-owned vehicles reversing into things – in which case the team might suggest changes to operating methods, additional training or the use of reversing cameras.