Value. What does that mean to you? When it comes to buying insurance, price is always a big consideration, of course. However, it’s important to also evaluate the other services that your agent/broker and insurance company can provide beyond simply writing an insurance policy and covering losses. You may be surprised at the numerous resources insurers offer—at no additional cost.
Here are services you may not be aware of, but are offered by many insurers:
Incident and Claims Management Advocate
OK, this one you should be aware of. The most important time for your insurance partner to show its “stuff” is during claim time. That is what you are paying for. Your insurance agent should be quarterbacking this process, being your advocate and making sure the insurance policy responds just as you planned/designed for it to. Service provided by: agent/
broker.
Management Training Sessions
Managers are often the ones interacting with incidents and near misses on a daily basis. However, the owners of the course are usually the ones that interact with the insurance agent, inspectors, etc. We find that sometimes there is a disconnect between the management staff and owners around the concept of risk management. So, what if the management staff, who deal with incidents on a daily basis, had a Risk Management 101 session with the insurance expert? During this session, managers can ask all the questions they’d like to and have an open, honest business conversation. This course/session allows for this disconnect to be mended. Service provided by: agent/broker.
Third-Party Operations Review (non-ACCT)
Philadelphia Insurance Company actually partners with a specialist in the camp and ropes course industry who will come out and do an operations review of your facility at no cost. This is a huge value-added service from your insurance company. In addition, your insurance agent/broker may be willing to come out and do his or her own operations review from his perspective. Service provided by: insurance company or agent/broker.
Contract Review
Contracts are where most of your liability is either assumed by you, passed to you, or passed to another party. How many times have you signed a contract without reading it thoroughly? Have you ever signed a contract and later figured out that you agreed to insurance terms that exposed you to unexpected risk, or are going to cost you thousands of extra dollars? Your insurance agent/broker should review every contract before you sign it to prevent any of these scenarios. You should also have your attorney review contracts as well, since he or she is most likely aware of any specific local issues you should address. Service provided by: agent/broker.
Mock Incident Response
Incidents are a very emotional event. Wouldn’t it be nice if your staff, or at least management staff, had the opportunity to experience a mock worst-case incident before any incident occurred? Far too often, we find that employees say the wrong things in incident reports, don’t act appropriately, or are just not trained on what to listen for during an incident. A mock incident response session can expose flaws and correct them. Service provided by: agent/broker.
Strategic Risk Management Review
Your operations change, and so should your insurance program design. Your agent/broker should be well aware of your organizational goals, marketing efforts, and strategic initiatives. This will allow him or her to better collaborate on your risk management strategies. For example, is it time to increase your auto physical damage deductibles because you never turn in an auto physical damage claim? This could result in saving additional premium. How risk tolerant are you? These conversations should be had on a yearly basis. Service provided by: agent/broker.
Sexual Abuse Training and Online Training Modules
Dealing with children at your business is an issue that needs to be addressed in today’s world. Many insurance companies offer “sexual abuse training.” In fact, Philadelphia Insurance Company, one of the major insurers in the aerial adventure industry, offers online sexual abuse and molestation webinars that you can specifically assign to each employee, and track their completion of the webinars. Service provided by: insurance company.
Discounted Background Checks
Many insurance companies offer strategic partnerships with vendors for discounted background checks or motor vehicle reports. Check this out with your insurance company as a way to streamline this process and, more importantly, manage the risk better with your new hires. Service provided by: insurance company.
Active Shooter Training
It’s a sad reality, but for large facilities that attract 100,000+ participants a year, going through active shooter training is a realistic precaution. What happens if your facility has an attraction that is only accessible via chairlift, where thousands of participants may be at once? In this case, and many others, having proper protocol and procedures in place for an active shooter is a must. Many insurance companies will come out and lead active-shooter training with your management staff and help you develop proper procedures to address this scenario. Service provided by: insurance company.
Insurance companies have many resources they can offer. Ask about them, evaluate them, and most importantly—take advantage of them. Many are offered to help prevent a significant incident from occurring at your facility, which serves both the insurer’s interests and yours. These services can also help you manage an incident properly and prevent it from getting completely out of control, which will affect your insurance premiums in the future.
Cameron Annas, CIC, CRM, CWCA, is vice president of business development at Granite Insurance and leads the company’s Adventure Sport team. He focuses on providing risk management and insurance solutions to zip line, aerial adventure parks, and other adventure facilities throughout the United States. Contact him at [email protected], (828) 234-9305.
