The process of tendering for a new insurance broker or advisor can be difficult to sift through the different offerings and skills presented. Acuity has acted in this role for a number of different clients and has been able to provide and independent opinion and has the skills and knowledge to ask the questions and draw out the information not provided in the tender documents.

Insurance relationships are not about the $ paid but the availability of the servicing team the experience of that team and a myriad of smaller points of difference that are not immediately apparent.

The biggest broker is not always the best to run your insurance affairs and may, in fact, be counterproductive to the businesses best interests. Many insurance placements are now marketed via a facility arrangement based upon a set of defined business criteria and remuneration targets for profitability set by the broker.

Whilst the question of whose best interests they are acting for is less clear to those on the outside of these arrangements, there is a problem with these arrangements. The only value of the facilities to the client, that of bulk buying, can become less effective if the business is not within the median point of insurance risk exposure for that particular profession. In other words, if the risk doesn’t exactly fit the activities imagined by the insurer for say, an accounting practice, then there is a large risk of cover gaps.

However large the company buying cover, these arrangements can be designed to run by premium segment thereby consigning the buyer to a prefabricated “solution”

These are vital considerations for any insurance tender process. The skill of the broker becomes clear in response to the right questions.

Acuity can and does ask those questions.