Tips to Be Proactive with Commercial Insurance and Avoid Costly Issues
Everyone knows that it's important to be proactive in all facets of life, including work--however have you considered how this specifically applies to your commercial insurance?
I recently read an article by Stephen Harris at Chubb who wrote about avoiding claims-made challenges for life sciences companies. He discusses the importance of working with your insurance broker proactively to understand how a policy would respond to various claims scenarios. This can help avoid potential issues as it pertains to the scope of your insurance coverage—clearly important to consider.
In addition to the points raised in the referenced article, I encourage clients to also evaluate their business interruption insurance. Recently this was hit home when a new client mentioned that his agent who he’d been with for seven years had never reviewed his business interruption insurance. Upon review, I found he was under insured by 50%! On the surface the coverage seemed appropriate, but as we looked into the details of the business and completed our business income worksheet we saw there were gaps. Had there been a loss while our client had the previous coverage, this would have been costly.
In order to be confident that you’re being proactive in all the right ways, it’s imperative that your insurance broker is in touch with you throughout the year, not just prior to renewal time. This communication provides for a well thought out marketing plan which should be developed by your broker, and shared with you. With this plan your broker can present your business to the insurance carriers in the most favorable way, thus ensuring you have the most cost effective and appropriate options when writing your policy for the upcoming year.
Proactively addressing workers’ compensation and safety issues is another area where our clients have benefited, and seen great cost savings. We feel so strongly about this that we reinvest in our clients in these areas! We provide access to our workers’ comp and/or safety consultants who will conduct a WC review or OSHA mock audit as needed. This ensures that potential infractions can be identified early on, and if there are more significant issues, we all work together to remedy the problems.
If your insurance broker has been actively involved with you throughout the year and understands your business (both the challenges and the strengths), they should be well equipped to address all these relevant areas before they become significant challenges.
To further discuss the details of a proactive approach to commercial insurance and the various ways to implement this, contact Patrick Darcey. He is a Risk Management Consultant who works with clients to lower their total cost of risk by employing strategies such as loss control and risk management, including safety training, claims management and alternative risk financing methods. Please contact Patrick - at 401-671-6355 or pdarcey@providerig.com.