Have you ever done a parachute jump? Apparently, once you get over the shock of throwing yourself out of the plane, drifting back down to earth is a tranquil and serene experience. That is until you get close to the ground and all of a sudden it seems to rush up towards you. A similar feeling of ground rush is not an uncommon emotion for many policyholders approaching their insurance renewal date.
During the course of day-to-day operations, the admin surrounding your insurance renewal doesn’t often feel like a priority. After all, the deadline isn’t for weeks, or even months.
But keeping on top of your organisation’s evolving insurance needs will save time when it comes to the crunch. More importantly, it’ll make sure your insurance programme provides the necessary support in the event of a future claim.
Throughout the year and leading up to your renewal date, here are some headline considerations to ensure your renewal goes smoothly.
Property
Has anything within your property estate changed? For example, you might have moved to new premises or added a new location to your operations. If so, you’ll need to make sure any new buildings are included in your insurance programme and that you have the appropriate level of cover in place for every location.
And even if your property portfolio is the same, have you undertaken any renovations or redesigns? Development programmes can change the rebuild value of a property and this will impact the sums insured you need for your policy.
You also need to consider changing market conditions. Increased labour and material costs will also have an impact on the rebuild value of your property and these need to be reflected in your cover.
People
Has your employee and volunteer roster increased or decreased? Has your organisation become more reliant on a number of key individuals? If so, it’s important to recognise these changes and make sure your insurance programme offers protection in the event of something happening to one of these lynchpins in your personnel.
It’s also important to recognise where people’s functions have changed and to ensure they have the correct training to carry out any new duties effectively and compliantly.
Services
Third sector organisations are continually evolving to meet the needs of their service users. This ranges from changes in fundraising activity to the actual services provided.
Perhaps you’ve opened a new online retail operation to support your portfolio of shops. It might be that you’ve decided to hold some local events to raise your profile, generate funds and bring people together.
Maybe you’ve started a transport service that helps people get around in the community or takes them on outings. Have you widened your area of operation to support people across a bigger geographical area?
Whatever the change, your insurer needs to know about it to ensure you have the necessary cover to protect your employees, volunteers, services users and members of the public.
Risk Management
During the course of the year, you might have implemented additional risk management procedures that improve your risk profile. This could be new alarms or security measures for your property portfolio. It might be a programme of employee training to overcome health and safety issues or to ensure staff can better support service users.
Insurers are keen to know about any steps that you’ve taken to improve your risk profile. Evidence of a robust risk management programme can make a material difference to the insurance terms offered.
This list is not exhaustive, but it does highlight areas on which to focus. And this isn’t something you have to do on your own. Insurance brokers like Keegan & Pennykid offer professional support in detailing the exposures you have and explaining the available options to manage, mitigate and transfer them effectively.
We can also provide access to niche products for unusual and/or challenging risks as well as making sure the policies put in place are properly matched to your needs and offer good value for money.
And if you need to make a claim, we will help you to manage the process and submit a complete and comprehensive claim for your loss. Managing claims can be a big draw on resources and providing the requisite data in the appropriate format isn’t always easy. A broker’s support will always play a big part in ensuring your claim gets the fullest possible settlement.
To discuss a forthcoming renewal or any other aspect of your insurance needs, please get in touch with the highly experienced team here at Keegan & Pennykid.
