Environmental

Several high-profile incidents over the last few years have kept the spotlight on how businesses are (or aren’t) managing their environmental risks. With continued public pressure on politicians and regulators to hold industry professionals accountable for their actions, the growth of environmental insurance is expected to continue and the number of businesses seeking out strategies to mitigate the costs associated with complex legal actions and damage awards related to their operations will rise.

In December 2008, a Kawartha couple did what many Canadians do when winter approaches—they hired a company to refill the fuel oil tanks at their home in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. After the tanks were refilled by a local fuel company, the couple eventually noticed that the oil was leaking from their basement and called their insurance company to begin the remediation process.

The demand for environmental liability is strengthening, but the policy limits being purchased and renewed are decreasing.

Among the most interesting developments in environmental liability coverage is that the recovering economy is turning businesses from window-shoppers into buyers. According to Marsh’s analysis of the environmental market, demand for environmental insurance across all U.S. industries increased in the first half of 2013, a qualitative assessment based on the broker’s assessment of activity, placements and dialogue with insurance carriers.

What forces are influencing your market most nowadays? Should customers try to include specialized coverage in their general liability (GL) policy? Why should risk managers buy tailored liability products? Why should risk managers buy coverage when they don’t think they have any exposure? What are some of the recent changes you’ve made to products or programs to target the needs of risk managers? Specialization is key to thriving in the professional and environmental markets, insiders say.

Less than 10 percent of environmental losses that businesses incur are insured. Yet by most accounts, the environmental marketplace is flush with capacity. So why the coverage gap? Agents with a keen eye for exposures will find plenty of opportunity – and capacity – in the environment

What should brokers and agents know about environmental risk? How can brokers and agents help clients better understand their environmental coverage needs? Is all pollution insurance the same? Gina Jones, director of environmental programs, Burns & Wilcox responds.

For weeks on end in 2010, live footage of a ruptured pipeline spewing oil underwater in the Gulf of Mexico served as a 24/7 reminder of the potential for environmental devastation. Underwriters and brokers dealing with Environmental insurance initially feared the worst in terms of the disaster’s impact on the industry.

Standing before a client with several environmental quotes can be a daunting task for a retail agent or broker who rarely handles environmental coverage. How do you explain the differences in proposals? How do you move the client to the most appropriate policy, especially when a cheaper policy is not the best choice or value?

When agents shop around for environmental insurance for their clients it’s important that they ask their wholesale broker or underwriter the right questions to cover all of their client’s exposures. Most insurance companies do not provide a full range of environmental coverages. Instead, they limit their underwriting procedures to certain types of policies, including environmental professional E&O liability policies, contractor’s policies, site specific policies, remediation stop-loss policies, environmental remediation policies, asbestos and lead abatement contractor’s general liability policies and/or combination CGL/EIRS policies.

We’re less than a year into the Obama administration, but the promises and early actions of the leadership in Washington seems to bode a clear agenda: Green.

Whether it’s the recession, the stimulus package, healthcare reform or the steroid scandal, there are plenty of topics grabbing our attention these days. One that may have a strong impact on the insurance industry is climate change. However, a discussion of the effects of climate change on our industry and the people we serve is almost non-existent.

Retail agents face many challenges, but one of the greatest is to convince a company in a clean industry to buy pollution insurance. Most often, it’s not a required coverage and the companies wonder how they could incur pollution liability anyway?