Program Spotlight - Fall Program Leader Magazine Print 2023

Program Spotlight

PROGRAMS

“Knowing the terrain” helps them thrive amid challenges for residential city properties.

The key to success in the specialty insurance business is no secret: Know your market. Specialized, focused knowledge and support are what customers seek in niche coverage areas, and they are the top priorities for Zurich North America when finding the right Program Administrators to work with.

On both the knowledge and support fronts, Distinguished Programs delivers. They are the PA for four Zurich programs: City Landlords, City Condominiums, City Multi-Family and Owner- and Tenant-occupied Properties – NYC (aka New York Brick and Brownstone). In a challenging property insurance market, Distinguished Programs has seen growth by emphasizing three areas they highlight on their company website: People, performance and longstanding relationships.

While the relationship between Distinguished Programs and Zurich is only a few years old, a strong collaboration was set in motion early on and the companies continue to build on it, helping customers find appropriate coverage in a world of fast-evolving risk exposures. The fruits of that collaboration include recent expansion or approval to expand the three City Homes programs into five additional states.

Katie Vespia, Program Manager for Transitional and Urban Homes with Distinguished Programs, said coverage excellence and underwriting expertise are always the drivers for growth, but she also credits the concentration on city properties. Where some competitors may be too divided in focus between city and suburban properties, Distinguished Programs has a dedicated team specifically focused on knowing property issues of large urban areas better than anyone.

“For instance, we know Chicago like the back of our hand,” Vespia explained. “Naperville, Illinois? We might not be as familiar with that, but in Chicago, we know virtually everything relevant to the properties we insure. Because we’re looking at these specific metro areas day in day out, we have an eye for exactly what each city looks like. And the needs are different for each area.”

Those needs are partially driven by the age of properties, as cities tend to have older buildings and maintain them longer. Vespia noted many of the buildings they help insure were built between 1900 and 1950. Older properties usually require more updates to meet building codes, so Distinguished Programs offers extensive Building Ordinance coverage.

Like the broad base policies offered, optional coverages and endorsements have been developed with that laser focus on conditions in cities and well-maintained properties.

Zurich was eager to work with Distinguished Programs because of the stability of these city property programs, dating back to 2007. As Vespia said, “That might not seem like such a long time, but there has been so much market disruption over those years. We’ve managed to steer clear of many of those setbacks that others [in the market] have come across.”

Zurich’s underwriting strength was naturally the key point of attraction for Distinguished Programs, but there was also a marketing advantage.

“Zurich has a really strong name,” Vespia explained. “When one of our sales executives or an underwriter is meeting with potential customers, the brand recognition [of Distinguished Programs] might not be immediate for homeowners, landlords or condo owners, but when they see the strength of Zurich backing our program, it really promotes us. It helps us win the business.”

“We work closely with Zurich’s marketing team,” she added. “There are additional resources Zurich has provided to us to help us grow, to help us improve.”

Continuing on a successful path means navigating some serious challenges. As it has across the industry, the rise in frequency and severity of weather-related natural catastrophes has required Zurich’s Property programs to adapt, and Distinguished Programs’ understanding of urban climate exposure has been vital in a cautious approach to “NatCat” coverages that still keeps customer needs front and center.

Ongoing changes in energy and technology are also top of mind for the PA.

“There are all these new technology components that are more prevalent nowadays than even a year to two years ago — like solar panels and EV charging stations,” Vespia said. “So, we’re always trying to think about how these apartments and condos evolve over time and the risk that’s associated with those changes.”

Another issue is lower building occupancy in cities following the remote and hybrid working revolution that reached new heights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While that might seem to be an issue mainly for office buildings, Vespia said it has definitely impacted residential properties.

“Office spaces correlate to where people are living, and if you’re not going to have all that [occupied] office space, not as many people may feel the need to live within the cities,” she explained. “There are more vacancies in apartment buildings, and we’re trying to ensure that the landlords have the right information and know how to maintain those properties and help control exposures through risk mitigation when occupancy is an issue.”

Being able to thrive against such challenges has been a hallmark of Distinguished Programs and it all comes back to that number one rule: Know your market.

“We’ve had considerable growth over the last couple of years, Vespia said. “And I think that just gets back to the knowledge that we have in the space, both on the underwriting side and with Zurich as the carrier.”

Katie Vespia of Distinguished Programs

Being able to thrive against such challenges has been a hallmark of Distinguished Programs and it all comes back to that number one rule: Know your market.