Building resilience
At the forefront of protection:
Leveraging Risk Engineering in Specialty Insurance Programs
Across the many industries and wide range of customers Zurich serves, the capabilities of our Risk Engineering services are very well known. The Risk Engineers in our Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS) team are an essential part of how we help customers build a comprehensive risk management strategy.
In the Programs realm, the benefits of Risk Engineering can sometimes go a little under the radar, with the necessary deep focus on specialized underwriting needs for unique risks and the detailed, sometimes evolving risk appetite for very specific industry sectors and niche markets. But the expertise, tools and insights Risk Engineers can provide are as vital to supporting the risk mitigation strategies and profitability of Programs’ clients as they are for any other business.
“There is a high level of communication between the administrators along with a constant focus on introducing the latest risk management strategies.”
In fact, the unique risks of specialty insurance coverage align perfectly with our Risk Engineers most important skill set: zeroing in on the specificity of risk exposures for every business they work with.
When working with a Program Administrator, ZRS will develop a service strategy focused on the needs and requirements of the PA. The Risk Engineer and the PA work together to identify and evaluate exposures and potential controls within their book of business. ZRS can help our PAs by developing detailed assessment reports focused on their unique needs. In addition to providing recommendations and action items to the PA and their customers focused on eliminating and/or mitigating exposures, ZRS also supports PAs with tools and thought leadership they can share with customers.
Zurich’s Historic Properties program is a great example of this process in action. Properties of historic importance (including those on the National Register of Historic Places) require very careful handling and an awareness of many considerations that may not be applicable for other structures.
National Trust Insurance Services, LLC is the Program Administrator for our Historic Properties program. Miranda Creager is the Program Service Coordinator and she explained how Zurich’s Risk Engineers help National Trust serve this distinctive property sector.
“Their highly knowledgeable and experienced professionals greatly contribute to our program’s success by helping minimize loss potential on the historic treasures we insure,” Creager said. “These unique structures require a different loss-control approach than your average commercial building. For this reason, Zurich Risk Engineering has customized a program for our unique risks.”
Creager emphasized that collaboration is central to this effective working relationship.
“There is a high level of communication between the administrators along with a constant focus on introducing the latest risk management strategies. Zurich’s point person is always available and acts as a collaborator between the various Risk Engineering managers and engineers who service our program. Although our point person services other insurance programs, he always makes us feel that ours is number one.”
The point person Creager mentions highlights that while PAs and their insureds benefit from the input of a wide range of Risk Engineering professionals, there is just one point of contact to go through to tap all the support ZRS has available, including access to industry specialists, technical resources, data analytics, training, collaboration with brokers, and more.
Perhaps more than anything else, the broad experience and industry knowledge of Zurich Resilience Solutions can be the difference in delivering what a PA needs.
“Zurich’s Risk Engineers have been a help on a couple of accounts where we weren’t familiar with a specific process or terminology, and we were able to talk it out with a Risk Engineer for clarification,” explained Rachele Holden, Senior Vice President, Head of Product Underwriting for US Assure, the Program Administrator for Zurich’s Builders Risk programs.
With specialists steeped in cyber, climate change, supply chain, food and beverage, hospitality, construction, energy, pharmaceutical, marine, transportation and many other industries and issues, ZRS can help make those tricky gray areas that sometimes arise a little less murky.
And when our Risk Engineers find an exposure that demands an outside party to help find a solution, Zurich can leverage relationships with a wide variety of vendors. These can range from companies providing cyber security services to Emergency Vehicle Responder driver training to human resources support and much more.
Specialized coverages may be what brings companies to Programs insurance, but Program Administrators have an opportunity to expand their business by highlighting the multiple benefits of ZRS Risk Engineering for customers. When insureds take advantage of what ZRS has to offer, it can also contribute to claims reduction through loss avoidance, mitigation and supporting equitable claims settlements.
Helping prevent or limit large losses is a win for everyone — the insurer, the PA and the customer. Leveraging Risk Engineering’s myriad offerings is a great way to start working toward that win.
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10 PROGRAM LEADER