The benefits of telling the ‘complete story’ to insurers

The 21st century world is flooded with ‘personalisation’ options; we can put our unique stamp on almost anything, from creating your own pizza to must-guess-who-is-driving number plates, we have multiple options available for us to chose from. Did you know you can also do this with insurance? By thoroughly telling your own individual story, YOU have a major influence in shaping your insurance policy.

Conveying a business’s story is the key to being offered a competitive premium and highly relevant levels of cover. Think of it in terms of Miss Congeniality. Insurers have thousands of entrants to their ‘beauty pageant’ and have to judge solely on what is in front of them – the visual evidence with which they are supplied. The better and more complete the story, the easier it is to receive an accurate quote.

This takes the form of hard facts and figures relating to the business’s risk performance.

  • ♦ How many claims has it made?
  • What were the reasons?
  • What measures have been taken to prevent a repeat of this?
  • How compliant is it?
  • Does it train its employees to manage risk?

Brokers will ask these probing questions, to ensure the full picture is built. To have not disclosed a fact because you were not asked a particular question, could invalidate a policy or even lead to a claim being turned down. Insurers want to have the full story, with no missing chapters.

A few years ago, the answers to these questions may have been enough for a business to be offered an insurance package that did the job. Now, thanks to less certainty in the economy amongst other things, beauty pageant candidates have to stand out from the crowd. The judges have become more critical, more demanding and more selective in providing terms.

What does a business need to do?

Businesses need to work with their broker to make proposals attractive, honestly appraising risks within their business and explaining as much as possible about them. Detailed analysis of a business’s different exposure to risks are required, not just a broad brushstrokes overview.

At RiskHub we do this effectively by working with you, using audit tools to create a full picture of your insurance needs and also areas where you can improve your resilience to risk. We conduct face-to-face meetings, site visits and engage in an ongoing dialogue; enabling us to soak up detail like a sponge and translate it into a strategy. We become the ‘literary agent’, and secure your insurance on your behalf.

Compelling narrative is vital in insurer presentations. It is not all about demonstrating compliance – that should be a given. It is about going the extra mile, drilling right down into the data, the descriptions, the whys and the wherefores of risks and the sub-plot – what everyone within the business is doing to keep risk at bay. This is where a broker really becomes worth their salt, they command the right language for this narrative, can engage the insurer with a strong first page, an appealing plot and what the insurer regards as the happy ending.

RiskHub are proactive and well aware of the required hook to get a particular insurer to sit up and positively ‘want’ to insure the risk.

When should you act?

Way before it comes to renewal, you need to be realistic and question whether you as business have really gone all out to become the winner of the ‘beauty parade’. If the answer is ‘no’, you should question why your current broker has not communicated their efforts to manage risk sufficiently well. In this case, we can help you.

At RiskHub, we have set up our business model to incorporate mitigating current business risks. There are many insurance brokers out there with the ability to secure your business insurance, but this is where we differ, we want to offer you more, we want to help you, we want to build a long-term relationship between you and the insurer.

Why is it important to manage your business risk and secure personalised insurance?

The prizes of managing risk include improved business resilience, long-term competitive premiums, better levels of cover for key areas, wider choice of insurer and a culture of ever-improving risk management, which are well worth competing for.

Lets catch up for a coffee, we’d like to hear all about your business and discuss your areas of risk that can be improved upon. Contact us to arrange a time that suits you.