Buying personal insurance can be bliss. You have insurers fighting hand over fist to insure you, price comparison is a breeze, and you can get coverage with a simple internet search when you need it.
In contrast, buying insurance for large commercial risks can be a complete nightmare.
You have to fill out specialised forms; there’s no straightforward way to compare prices; insurers insist on going through brokers; the list goes on.
And you have to do it every year!
But there’s a way to make the process much easier. Keep reading to find out how.
Why Corporate Insurance Renewal Is Such a Pain
There are many reasons why organisational buyers find themselves at their wit’s end trying to keep up with insurance needs.
1. Data Collection Is Endless
The data collection process to present your organisation in a good light is monumental. Some large organisations with a multinational presence can take many months to collate all their data and translate it all into usable information for the insurance company.
To add insult to injury, there’s no transparency as to what insurers even do with the information. What are they taking into account? What should you focus on more?
Sometimes this data collection and presentation process needs to start just a few months after your last renewal. Effectively, you’re locked into an endless cycle of collecting data and arranging it at the mercy of insurance companies.
2. Premium Calculations Are Hidden
Do you know where your premium came from? Chances are the insurance company provides little to no information about how they calculate premiums.
Even if your risks haven’t changed since your last renewal, you could find that your premiums grew. That can be extremely frustrating if you don’t know why or how it happens.
And, there’s often little or no time to challenge the premium anyway. It can almost feel like insurance companies are giving you no room for negotiation with a “take it or leave it” approach.
Getting reasons for premium increases that aren’t at all valid is even worse. Insurers might try to convince you that your loss ratio is high, or blame the market, or even say you have the largest claim in your industry.
None of those are valid reasons for premium increases.
3. It’s a Massive Cash Sink
Insurers often require you to pay in advance, requiring huge amounts of cash on hand. The cost to raise that capital for some organisations is simply astounding. It makes more financial sense to use the cash, bit by bit, to reduce claims in the first place rather than pay for them in advance in a lump sum.
These and other reasons can start to make it seem like insurance is often just a mandatory cost that doesn’t make much financial sense, especially if you’ve had few claims in the past.
To get ahead of the game, you have to put yourself in the insurer’s shoes. If you think like an insurer, you’ll have a much easier time navigating all these obstacles.
What InsuranceInspect Services Can Do for You
For starters, you can get much better premiums and save money by focusing on what insurers want to know and dropping the rest. Contrary to many opinions, insurers don’t care about your past nearly as much as you might think. Past claims have already been paid for out of past premiums.
You also need to understand the real reasons for your premiums going up. That’s the only way to challenge a premium that’s offered to you with any real authority. If you have the actuarial facts that matter to hand, you’re much better prepared to negotiate.
To get better premiums and to make your renewal process more manageable, you’ll have to focus on many things, such as:
- When you present your renewal information makes as much of a difference as how you do it.
- Presenting expected maximum loss data (potential future claim scenarios) is imperative.
- How much you spend to present your renewal is a factor.
- Market losses that don’t affect your business do affect your premiums.
Flying Blind Will Get You Nowhere
The truth is that the insurance renewal process is only as bad as you want to make it. You’re probably trying to prove the wrong things to an unreceptive audience (insurers).
Instead, let InsuranceInspect Services help you take charge of your renewals. We’ll show you everything you need to know to think like an insurer, including where your premiums come from.. And, we’ll help you shorten and simplify your data collection process by getting rid of inessential tasks which add little value to your insurance submissions.
