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The Simkiss Companies provide insurance and risk management consulting services to organizations that seek expert guidance to supplement, or in lieu of, an in-house risk management department. Because we also have a very substantial brokerage practice, we are fully current on trends and conditions in the marketplace regarding program design, policy terms, and pricing. We work alongside the client as their expert to supplement and corroborate feedback from the broker who negotiates with insurers and places their policies. We also provide services throughout the year to support the client’s in-house capabilities.
Some of the services we can provide in-house include:
Insurance Renewal Review - As part of your risk management team, we will sit alongside you in meetings and presentations regarding your insurance renewal. From pre-renewal planning meetings to marketing selections, to financial presentations and meetings with underwriters, we will help you prepare, execute, and evaluate renewal strategies. At the point of purchase, when all negotiations with underwriters have been completed and proposals have been received, we can offer you advice, counsel and an independent resource to help assess which choices are in the best long term interests of your organization, including which carrier(s) to place coverage with, total limits of insurance you should purchase, retention levels you should maintain, etc.
In short, we will provide an additional professional and independent viewpoint for decision making at all points in your insurance renewal process (es).
Insurance Policy Review – The insurance policy is the final and only contract that outlines the insurer’s obligations to its clients. If not issued properly in compliance with all the specific terms and conditions upon which the coverage was negotiated and bound, problems are likely to arise if a claim develops down the road and this is the point at which you would have the least leverage to try to have the insurer correct the policy to match the terms on which you understood coverage to be bound. We can review your policies when received from your broker to be sure that all terms and conditions in the policy contract properly reflect the terms on which the coverage was bound.
Broker Compensation Review - Our firm has always advocated transparency in broker compensation. In recent years, it has been made clear that not all of our peers shared this view. Broker compensation is an important component of the cost of an insurance program and needs to be disclosed, evaluated and understood in order for a client to be comfortable that their program is reasonably priced. We will help you request information regarding total compensation received by your broker on your account and assess the adequacy and reasonableness of levels of compensation.
Contract Reviews – We routinely review vendor contracts, leases, etc. from a risk management perspective to comment on the degree to which you may be accepting more risk than necessary and/or to which you may be able to transfer away risk to others via the use of indemnification, hold harmless, limitation of liability, insurance requirements, and similar contractual provisions. We can also help you review insurance certificates when received from third parties to be sure that the coverages and terms you require in your contracts are properly provided and reflected in the certificate of insurance. The extent to which you can deflect risk via aggressive contractual risk management and access to insurance coverage carried by third parties can reduce the likelihood and necessity of a claim on your insurance program. Reduction of potential insurance claims has both qualitative benefits in terms of favorable insurer relationships and quantitative benefits in terms of retentions/deductible dollars saved and reduced insurance premiums in the future.
Claims Review Services – We can assist you in evaluating the claims services provided by your broker and insurance carrier/claims administrator. We can also help you track existing claims, evaluate alternative proposed courses of action on claims as presented by adjusters, and help you review claims before presenting them to your carrier. This last point is extremely valuable and one we advocate with all clients. In many cases, it is easiest to just report a claim to your own insurer but claims drive up premium costs in future years and you retain the first portion of every claim on many of your policies through retentions/deductibles so claims have a very real, current cash and earning impact. We recommend pre-reporting evaluations so that it can be determined whether there is another, more responsible party to whom this claim can be deflected by means of a contractual obligation to protect/indemnify you against these risks. Claims which can successfully be reported to another party’s liability insurer rather than yours have both quantitative and qualitative benefits to your insurance program and relationship with your carriers, as noted in our comments on contractual risk transfer.
Other Areas of Risk – We can assist you in internal evaluations and action plans for how you identify and manage risks throughout your entire enterprise, including those not commonly thought of as being within the purview of property casualty insurance. Such areas include but are not limited to:
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Concentration of credit/receivable risk, which you may be able to manage internally or may conclude that a credit insurance product is a useful financial tool to offload some risks. |
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Disaster/recovery planning – we can help you evaluate what you have done in this increasingly important area and coordinate the services of professionals in this area if you need assistance in the development of such a program |
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Sarbanes-Oxley planning – to the extent that your interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley and those of your CPA and/or consultants has led you to conclude that some degree of insurance or risk management due diligence and/or documentation is necessary, we can assist you in this area. |
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Mergers and Acquisitions – If you proceed towards the acquisition or divestiture of a company or business unit, we can provide assistance in a number of areas including performing (or reviewing similar work done by your broker or counsel) due diligence on insurance coverages and risks related to the transaction, helping you evaluate options for “tail” coverages or similar risks which arise here and the pursuit of representations and warranties insurance. |
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Contingent income risks – If a portion of your revenue is dependent on the continued operation of a physical location by a customer, reinsurer or other business partner such that a physical loss to one of those locations which interrupted their business would have a financial impact on you, we can help you identify and consider whether you wish to insure these risks. |
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Key person risks – We would be happy to participate in a review of what, if any, planning has been done regarding death or incapacitating disability of one or more key person(s). This would include both internal procedures and policies, if any, regarding travel and similar concentrations of key employees as well as insuring the financial exposure that such tragic events could bring to the company. |
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