Specialty Insurance Blog

Program Business

Program business can be a great way to differentiate your insurance business, but getting into a position to be a program administrator is not easy. Insurance carriers writing program business expect a significant level of expertise, underwriting discipline and processing capabilities in addition to a book of business. Many insurers have suffered by not doing a good job of managing their programs. As noted by this National Underwriter article (see here), insurers will carry out thorough due diligence on a prospective program administrator and their specialty business prior to agreeing to partner. What do they look for? As a minimum: Underwriting profitability, and data to support it Expertise - The people need to understand the business Processes and controls In... Read more →

Employment Claims from Termination

Employment law has developed into a gold mine for a few lucky people and their attorneys, resulting in increasing claims against employers and making employment practices liability insurance a mandatory coverage. One of the claims employers face is retaliation, and employers may be surprised to find that retaliation may be prohibited in certain cases. An article by law firm Troutman Sanders is an excellent review of retaliation exposure that employers may face (see here). The article talks about a crusading employee situation that the employer may want to stop through termination, but points out that there are situations where termination may be prohibited. Employers need to recognize when potentially disruptive crusading by an employee might constitute protected activity under one... Read more →

Investment Professional Liability Insurance Claims

The massive decline in the value of real estate, stocks and other investments will likely trigger investor suits against investment professionals, and will likely result in an uptick in professional liability insurance claims. In anticipation, we are seeing more disciplined risk selection, more restrictive terms and higher pricing from specialty lines underwriters for some professional liability classes such as investment advisors, private equity and hedge funds, trustees, accountants and consultants. A recent article, entitled Investment Performance and Liability Claims, by Jeff Stimpson (see here), looks at this changing landscape for accountants. As noted, investments with leverage will magnify losses and increase the exposure for claims, and fraud will play a role in some claims. However, insurance practitioners comment in the... Read more →