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Newsletter – Friday, December 2, 2011
Oh, the joys of insurance renewals; is your agency like ours with an end of year anniversary date for your E&O coverage? You do renew your E&O every year, right?
Who does your insurance review? Do you have the right coverage for your business? How do you balance the purchase of ‘extra coverage’ for your business against the likelihood of a loss? If you can’t sell insurance to yourself, how can you advise your clients to purchase full protection?
A few years ago, we purchased high limits of fidelity coverage in order to meet the requirements of one of our carrier’s contracts, something we had only minimal coverage for in the past through our package policy. This year the requirement has been lifted and I am faced with the age-old dilemma – to buy or not to buy. As insurance professionals, how important is it to buy the products we sell, or are you and I like the shoemaker whose kids run around barefoot? Would you buy steaks from a vegan? Apple clearly hires only Mac users to sell their own products! Once a year we get to stand in the shoes of our customer, and I am wondering if those shoes are pinching just a bit.
Fortunately, we have a lot of products that are easy to sell, not only because it doesn’t make sense to go without coverage, but also because the coverage is a great value. On top of the list would be personal umbrella insurance. Do clients ever have holiday get-togethers? Do they have kids that drive? Do they have animals with teeth? Do they ever have pig roasts with lots of adult beverages and fireworks? No one wants to paint a picture of doom and gloom, but as trusted insurance advisors we need to believe in what we sell enough to actually include it in all our proposals.
Another seriously overlooked area of insurance is professional liability. Some have the misconception that Professional is only for doctors and architects, that it is expensive, and that claims-made forms are inadequate. They could not be more wrong. Any business that sells a service as opposed to a product has a professional liability exposure. Ask your client, “Could you afford to defend yourself from a lawsuit if you fail to perform the service you ‘advertised’? That is a great opportunity to provide a professional liability quote in addition to the GL proposal you plan to present.
After all, this is the world we live in. Let’s make it better by making shoes that both ‘fit’ and protect.
Seriously,
