Insurance Buyers struggling with coverage gaps and service shortfalls!

Though conditions in the commercial casualty insurance market remain generally favorable, buyers still struggle with significant coverage gaps and service shortfalls in addressing their companies' exposures, stated a panel of risk managers at Advisen Ltd.'s Casualty Insights Conference in New York.

Global regulatory shifts, advancing technology, hybrid business models and a growing cultural proclivity for litigation are among the more distressing trends driving claims activity in the casualty space, panelists said. And in many cases, panelists said, risk managers are in dire need of new insurance solutions and services to minimize the impact of those exposures. One glaring deficiency, they noted, is the lack of insurance products tailored for the increasing number of firms that have begun blending production and service business models in response to changes in global supply chain structures.

“As more American companies move into service-oriented business models and away from manufacturing, I'm not sure insurers are keeping up with that,” said Maria Diaz, director of global risk management at Norwalk, Conn.-based Xerox Corp. “In other words, they're very good at addressing the risks of a manufacturing company, and they're very good at working with a financial institution or other type of service firm. But if you're a company that does both, it's really a challenge to design an insurance program that is creative enough to meet those needs.”
Matt Dunning (Business Insurance)