"You never expect these things to happen, but when they do, it’s a real shock. I never imagined it would be this hard to find an insurer willing to cover us – let alone have our current insurer walk away." These were the words of a recent client who turned to Priority Insurance Brokers after facing the difficult that was his public liability insurance renewal. Following a significant claim, their roofer's insurance policy skyrocketed, with one insurer quoting triple the price and the current insurer refusing to renew their public liability cover. 

The client unfortunately had a water damage claim where it was found that a screw hole was not sealed correctly after some roof repairs had been completed. This then caused water ingress to the customers property where after a significant amount of rain fell over a weekend the internal ceiling had collapsed. After all of the repairs, cleanup costs and professional fees were taken into the consideration the total claim cost was just under $200,000. Initially, when the client lodged the claim, he followed the standard process and was glad that his insurer accepted the liability for the claim and paid the associated costs. Fast forward another 6 months, the client was contacted by his broker at the time notifying him that they had received a notice from the insurer that they do not intend to offer renewal terms for his public liability policy due to the large claim that occurred. The client assumed that everything would be fine and another insurer would be located, this wasn't the case. After another 2 weeks had passed the current broker at the time advised that they were unable to secure another insurer willing to take on the cover. 

The client then realized that his renewal date was only 2 weeks away and another option had to be found so that his business and his livelihood could continue to operate. After being told that no other options were available, the client then decided to reach out to Priority Insurance Brokers. 

The reality is, we didn't do anything more than what we would've done with any other client. We followed our usual process of opening up engagement with our panel of insurers and began having discussions with them at length as to what options could potentially be sourced for the client. One of the questions that was asked by one of our insurers was "what preventative measures have been implemented since the claim had occurred?" This led to a conversation with the client who advised us and the insurer that they were in a massive growth cycle of their business, and they were taking on a significant amount of work which required them to engage a large number of subcontractors, and they were basically engaging anyone who was qualified to do work on their behalf. After the claim occurred, they began to scale back the growth and take on a more reasonable amount of projects that was sustainable to the quality of product and service that they wanted to deliver.

This was the key deciding factor that made one insurer comfortable with offering a quote to cover their business for the next 12 months. Unfortunately, the insurer had to impose a water damage excess of $10,000 along with a premium increase that was triple the amount of what they paid the year before, yet it meant that their business could continue to operate.

The reality is, we didn't do anything more than what we would've done with any other client. We followed our usual process of opening up engagement with our panel of insurers and began having discussions with them at length as to what options could potentially be sourced for the client. One of the questions that was asked by one of our insurers was "what preventative measures have been implemented since the claim had occurred?" This led to a conversation with the client who advised us and the insurer that they were in a massive growth cycle of their business, and they were taking on a significant amount of work which required them to engage a large number of subcontractors, and they were basically engaging anyone who was qualified to do work on their behalf. After the claim occurred, they began to scale back the growth and take on a more reasonable amount of projects that was sustainable to the quality of product and service that they wanted to deliver.

This was the key deciding factor that made one insurer comfortable with offering a quote to cover their business for the next 12 months. Unfortunately, the insurer had to impose a water damage excess of $10,000 along with a premium increase that was triple the amount of what they paid the year before, yet it meant that their business could continue to operate.

Insurers are there to pay claims when an unforeseen situation unfolds that becomes costly however, there are other aspects that they need to consider. Things like overall claim costs, re-insurance or capacity provider restrictions, industry trends and the risk profile of a client or an occupation in general. It's not as though this happens to every client who makes a claim however, each insurance provider has certain restrictions and appetite for selected occupation. This meant that as the occupation was considered "non-preferred" and a claim occurring in the last 12 months it meant that the current insurer was no longer able to offer cover. 

Whenever something changes in your business or who you do business with it's always best to consider options. As with this client, the fact that one broking group wasn't able to secure an insurer to offer cover doesn't mean that no one can. However, with large increases on renewal premium or imposed excesses like what was received above it is always best to get multiple options in order for you to consider what is most palatable to your business.