AdvisenPings

Greatest Insurance Losses Not On Balance Sheet

2010-10-07T04:23:00.000-07:00

I am attaching a link to a story that appears in today's edition of Front Page News. It is a worthwhile read for insurance professionals who have been around for a while.

By Larry Goanos.
Like fog rolling into The City of London, a layer of sadness has settled over the professional lines segment of the insurance industry in the past month with the passing of Bob Clements, Jon Vlachos and Tom Vietor. These three were not only skilled practitioners of the insurance trade, but also upstanding men who graced our business in their unique ways.

Read the rest at http://fpn.advisen.com/fpnHomepagep.shtml?resource_id=129480389-1044114304&userEmail=jblinn@advisen.com#top

Cyber on my Mind

2010-07-29T17:49:00.001-07:00

Advisen publishes Front Page News (FPN) every work day. Actually, a given that we publish FPN on most holidays, it is pretty frequent. We have four editions that we need to prepare - Front Page News, FPN - European Edition, FPN - Healthcare Edition and FPN - Environmental. Each has a distinct audience. It is an important challenge to find fifteen stories that are relevant to the readership of each edition.

We follow a number of metrics to evaluate what our readers think about the various editions. We know, for example that while the Healthcare edition has a relatively smaller readership, the readers are very devoted to the content we provide. We also track the types of articles that are most frequently read. One of the consistent trends we have identified is that our readers are interested in articles about cyber issues. This includes topics such as system breaches, unauthorized release of information, emerging laws and regulations as well as the litigation that surrounds all of this. Cyber articles stand out as being of the greatest interest to our readers.

If you have an article that you would like for us to consider including in Front Page News, feel free to send it in to editors@advisen.com. It doesn't have to deal with a cyber issue, but it does help.

The RIMS Benchmark Survey is Out!

2010-07-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

30 years - just think about it. RIMS has been publishing the RIMS Benchmark Survey(tm) for that long. I have had the opportunity to be associated with the undertaking most of that time as well. So this year we celebrate the longevity of providing this valuable information to Risk Managers.

Every year it is a huge effort to assemble all of the data and put it into publishable form. We have always enjoyed strong support from RIMS and its members, so that we are able to provide timely information that assists in their work.

If you are interested in finding out more about the book, the link is

http://www.rims.org/resources/BenchmarkSurvey/Pages/PurchasetheBook.aspx

2010 AIRMIC Conference

2010-06-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

As one wag prepared me, "the Germans had the right idea with Manchester", my expectations were pretty low for the 2010 AIRMIC conference. It turns out that Manchester is an interesting city with three colleges and a large Chinatown. The facility is new and well suited to a conference such as AIRMIC.

Advisen had a booth at the conference

which is shown to the right. Standing at the Booth are Colin Fennelly, our Director of Sales in the UK as well as Joan Kelly who is responsible for advertising and content sales.

During the conference, AIRMIC released a paper titled "Casualty Classes of Insurance Benchmarking Report 2010" which was prepared by Advisen in conjunction with AIRMIC and Chartis. If you are an AIRMIC member, you can access the paper for free. We anticipate conducting a suite of three benchmarking surveys in 2010/2011 with AIRMIC as well.

Webinars

2009-11-16T18:24:00.001-08:00

We have recently begun to host more webinars. They are an incredibly effective way to share information and provide insight to people with a similar interest. Furthermore, they are but another way to connect and communicate with prospects without having to get on an airplane to visit with them. I think that American Airlines is probably devestated by the reduction in my flying over the past few years.

We recently were fortunate to be asked by ACE to host a webinar entitled "Going Global – Emerging Issues for Environmental Programs". For this webinar, held on November 12, we had 300 participants from around the globe - including people from UK, Canada, Bermuda, Germany, etc. One of the true signs of audience engagement is the number of questions received - we had 41 that came in over the space of an hour.

We are putting together our calendar for next year's sessions. We expect to have quarterly sessions on Securities litigation as well as special topics including EPLI, cyber liability and the state of the market. If you would like more information about Advisen Webinars and our capability to assemble a relevant audience as well as host an engaging event, contact Advisen’s Joan Kelly at ads@advisen.com

Insurance Newsletters Evaluation

2009-10-26T17:46:00.000-07:00

Advisen publishes a daily electronic newsletter - Front Page News or FPN that has a circulation of over 100,000 insurance professionals. The field has grown more crowded and diverse as other organizations create newsletters. We have several editions in addition to our core Professional edition, including FPN Europe, Environmental and Healthcare. While we spend a lot of time creating each edition, often our efforts go unremarked. For that reason, it is always interesting to see what others say about our efforts.

We recently came across a piece entitled "Eight US Insurance Daily Newsletters Appraised - Which One is Right for Your Company?" which was written by Ronald Gift Mullins. A copy of his piece can be found here. He took a look at the following list of newsletters:

Advisen Front Page News Professional Edition,
BestDay,
Business Insurance Daily News,
III (Insurance Information Institute)
Insurance Daily,
Insurance Newscast,
InsuranceNewsNet,
National Underwriter Daily,
SNL Insurance Daily

He rated them on a scale of up to five POLIES.

And The Winner Was...

Drum roll please....Advisen's Front Page News. Here is what he wrote:

"Advisen Front Page News Professional Edition. www.advisen.com Each business day, according to its promotional copy, David Bradford, editor, and others examine more than 60,000 articles from 4,000 domestic and international news sources to find the 15 most relevant ones to include in Advisen’s FPN newsletter. “Our goal is to provide news that is valuable and of interest to commercial P&C professionals,” Bradford replied to questions, “not just news about the insurance industry. We cover a wide array of economic, legal and regulatory events that influence the insurance industry.” It is e-mailed in the morning between 7:30 and 8:30.There are five full-time and two part-time Advisen employees, of which one works exclusively on the newsletters. The staff does original reporting and writing, and material is accepted from industry experts, companies and agencies. But most of the items are from major newspapers, business news services. The first half 2009 P/C results did not appear in the newsletter until Sept. 30 as part of a wire service report.The annual subscription cost is $199 and there are about 100,000 subscribers. “We’ve occasionally tried to track the pass alongs–and there are a lot,” Bradford quipped, “especially when there are stories about strippers.” One stripper reference reported an account of a Florida man who sued a nightclub and a stripper for injuries he received when the exotic dancer allegedly kicked him in the face during her performance. There is also a FPN Digest newsletter which is free but only three of the 15 articles can be viewed in full.The Advisen Front Page News has a pleasing format and type style. Judicious use of color and fonts focus attention on individual headlines. The articles flow from most significant to not so, including from time to time a whimsical one. Clicking on a headline brings up the original source with attribution. Also, with the click comes a bewildering array of other choices that call up the vast data gathering resources of Advisen. There is a smooth logic to the many choices and sub-choices that are available from Advisen. Whoever is responsible for the web site’s layout has industriously used all space to best advantage; none is wasted, reminding me of a truism about Chicago hog packers—the only part of the pig not used was the squeal.And while Advisen does not hide its bright light under a basket, it does not push with devilish entreaties its other for-hire products. And advertisers have their place, noticeably yes; but not overwhelmingly so.Overall for broadly providing in a pleasing and accommodating format the current, imperative developments concerning the insurance industry in the US for a reasonable charge, Advisen FPN Professional Edition rates 4 POLIES."

In the interest of candor, he also rated two other competing publications at a similar level, but we were pleased to read his positive comments.

Spencer Educational Foundation Musings

2009-10-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

I am fortunate to be able to serve on the Board of Directors of the Spencer Educational Foundation. Every fall, we have an annual planning session to discuss our strategy and budget for the next year. Each of these sessions is hosted by a member company. This particular one was hosted by FM Global.

Through their generosity, we were able to visit the FM Global research campus in West Glocester, R.I.. As you might imagine, it is a little out of the way. The research campus is an amazing reflection to their commitment to reduce the likelihood and cost of property loss. We had an opportunity to see the Global Fire Technology Lab where they conduct research on topics. We had the opportunity to see them conduct a test burn of almost 800 gallons of 200 proof ethanol (see my great camera phone shot) to evaluate fire extinguishing approaches. This is part of an overall review of the protection standards for ethanol processing facilities. We also visited their Natural Hazards Lab and saw them launch 2 x 4"s into plywood to illustrate the impact of windborne objects on walls.

During the formal part of the Spencer Foundation planning session, we discussed how to best continue our mission of supporting education of risk management professionals. We hope to be able to continue our funding of scholarships at a good level in the next year. We also discussed how to expand the impact of our new website in the marketplace.

FERMA Thoughts

2009-10-08T03:53:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to attend the FERMA conference in Prague this week. Having attended a number of conferences including the RIMS conference a number of times as well as the AIRMIC conference, it was quite different. FERMA is an association of 17 associations which makes it quite interesting. FERMA's existence makes a lot of sense as most of the individual associations are relatively small or less mature. There is a unique system of governance which means that decisions need to be ratified by the presidents of the different associations.

The choice of Prague was quite brilliant. It combines an interesting blend of older historical structures, communist era buildings and newer post-communist buildings. It doesn't take much insight to differentiate among them. I was able to attend a number of receptions - which generally took advantage of the historical side of the city. You can see a picture of yours truly at the XL reception which was conducted at Lobkowicz Palace.

Workers Compensation Best Practices

2009-09-08T04:02:00.000-07:00

The following is from Becki Shafer. We conducted a survey of workers compensation practices with her that was parto fht 2009 RIMS Benchmark Survey.

This year, the 2009 RIMS Benchmark Survey includes a section on WC Best Practices. Normally, the survey is only data, so this is a big change for RIMS and Advisen. While it is interesting to know the Cost Per FTE, now we know more than costs. We know what the majority of companies are doing operationally. The workers’ compensation survey reveals that approximately 60 percent of companies have moderate to significant deficiencies in their workers’ compensation claims management practices.

In the survey, there were 10 questions representing each section of a workers’ compensation management program. RTW, Medical Management, Communication, etc. For example, the RTW question asks whether the company brings employees back to work on transitional duty until they fully recover. It then provides the percentage of responders having implemented a program a) across all units, b) to some units, c) not at all or d) don’t know. It provides percentage of companies with charge back systems, post injury procedures, whether companies have visited the medical facilities where their employees receive medical care, whether they have an employee brochure, use a fraud tip line, obtain medical restrictions on the first visit, etc. etc.

This is the first time these operational best practices have been determined for the entire risk management community. The purpose is to help companies get started in cost reduction efforts by offering comparisons. The study mentions which best practices the top 25 companies with the highest overall scores are doing. It also tells a bit about which financing methods netted the best scores – e.g. self-insurance, direct purchase, with or without broker.

RIMS and Advisen sell the full survey for companies that want to take it one step past comparing their programs to these statistics. The full survey is the Assessment in Workers Comp Kit; the 10 RIMS survey questions were selected from WCK. This enables all companies to instantly know how well they are doing – much like a FICO score.

Tracking Securities Litigation

2009-08-20T05:25:00.000-07:00

Every quarter Advisen is publishing an analysis of the securities litigation filed in the prior quarter as well as the significant cases that were decided. Last quarter's paper can be found here. One aspect of our work that is worthy of note is that we try to be comprehensive in our view of the litigation - seeking to identify cases that may trigger some form of coverage under a D&O policy. To that end, the categories of litigation we track include:

Securities Class Action (as you would expect)
Derivative Action
Derivative Shareholder Action
Securities Fraud (typically filed by the SEC)
Breach of Fiduciary Duties: Class Action (frequently filed in the case of a change of control)
Breach of Fiduciary Duties: Securities

We are constantly on the lookout for new types of cases. Most recently, we created a new type called Creditor Derivative which involved a case filed in May against Cell Genesys by their creditors. The case was dismissed, but certainly creative.

We also are conducting a webinar on August 3 discussing the results of the quarter as well as reviewing the application of models to evaluating risk of Securities lawsuits. We were joined by Chubb's Randy Hein, the D&O Diary's Kevin LaCroix, and Marsh FINPRO's Tripp Sheehan. We had 265 people join us for the session. If you missed it, we recorded the session, so you can view it at the link here. We also make the slides available.

We are hosting a similar webinar on Friday, October 16 at 11 am EDT. If you would like to register, you can follow the link here. I hope that you will join us. It has already been a very interesting quarter with a bunch of new cases being filed outside of the subprime/credit crisis arena.

Front Page News Reader Survey

2009-07-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

We decided to conduct a survey of the readers of Front Page News. The basic idea is to get feedback about what we are doing right and wrong and to solicit ideas for how we can improve.

Our daily circulation has grown by over 15% since the fall of 2008. With that kind of jump, we’re keen to make sure we’re staying in touch with your views about current topics and our future direction. This electronic survey takes ten minutes and is a great way to make sure we hear your opinion. Look for our survey in your e-mail inbox or request a copy via advisensurvey@advisen.com. Naturally, there's ample room for your confidential comments and suggestions, too.

It’s not too late to express your views and help shape and influence our daily summary of commercial insurance news. If you didn’t receive an invitation, request one via advisensurvey@advisen.com

Front Page News

2009-07-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

In a moment of temporary insanity, I volunteered to try creating Advisen's Front Page News (FPN). We have now four separate editions that we create - Professional, Europe, Healthcare and Environmental. We also make available the Digest edition available which is the headlines version of our flagship Professional product. Every work day (including holidays except Christmas), we publish 15 stories in each of these editions. The only exception is Environmental which is limited to the ten or so stories we find that are specific to this topic. All in all, we send out about 100,000 copies of FPN every day.

We receive a significant amount of praise and recognition for the content of FPN. We try to provide a broad reach of topics that are relevant to the curious insurance professional. These articles address topics of longer term interest (e.g. Madoff and AIG) as well as more current events.

Dave Bradford, our multi-talented curator of industry knowledge, is the editor of FPN and assembles it on most days. I am now trying my hand at finding the articles for every edition but Environmental. It is quite exhausting. I found out that we review at least one thousand articles to find the 15 gems we put in each edition. We review the articles we reveive from using a number of article filters, but it still requires a lot of scanning to find the good ones. One of the things that impresses me is that wide range of sources we can call on. I have now added articles from the New Haven Register, American Banker, High Yield Report as well as the more predictable sources like the Wall Street Journal.

As a final note, for better or for worse, we do not edit the articles. What you see is what somebody else wrote. If there is a typo or fractured usage - its them and not us. I mention this because we some times receive emails from our readers that imply a belief that we wrote the pieces.

If you would like to subscribe to FPN, please go to http://corner.advisen.com/news.html and you will see all of the options available.

Jobs Wanted - A Step Forward for the Industry

2009-07-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

This morning's jobs report was pretty grim - 467,000 jobs lost in the US in June - with the 9.5%unemployment rate being the highest in 26 years. I think we all know somebody in the industry who is either unemployed or on shaky ground.

At Advisen, we are trying to help out - even if only in a small way. For a number of years we have had a jobs posting service. Now we are turning that on its head - with our new Jobs Wanted service. We are making the registration and posting available at http://corner.advisen.com in the blue "People" tab on the lower left hand side. In addition to the Job Posting and People on the Move sub-tabs, we have a new Jobs Wanted section.

Posted here are the names of commercial insurance people who have told us they are AVAILABLE. As a supportive service to our colleagues in the industry during these turbulent times, we now post brief bios and contact information from Commercial Property & Casualty insurance professionals who are seeking employment. This contributed data is unchecked by Advisen. No firm names appear in any way. Want to be on this list? Enter your submission via
http://corner.advisen.com and select People and choose Jobs Wanted.

We don't think we are going to solve the nation's unemployment problem. We are simply trying to provide our colleagues a means to let other know of their availability in the market. We recognize that this medium will not be appropriate for all, but helping one is better than helping none. We also know that forging new paths in an industry that cannot always be labeled as innovative is difficult on multiple fronts. Accordingly, we invite your comments and suggestions regarding this newest column from Advisen. Contact us at editors@advisen.com with any comments or post your own thoughts on the blog.

2009 RIMS Benchmark Survey

2009-06-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

I just received on my desk the most recent edition of the RIMS Benchmark Survey. I think it looks great and contains even more valuable information than ever. Of course, we have extensive data about the Cost of Risk and the changes from year to year. We discuss how the costs dropped 9.4%, principally because of reductions in insurance premiums

This year we included the results of a new survey on ERM Practices as well as Workers Compensation best practices. In addition, we have included the popular Broker Compensation Survey results.

I have included some of the press coverage for the book in the Advisen Web Clippings blog.

This is a must-have for risk management professionals. If you would like to purchase it, the book is available at http://www.rims.org/resources/BenchmarkSurvey/Pages/PurchasetheBook.aspx.

Advisen Update - Support and Grow Your Book of Business

2009-06-24T17:51:00.000-07:00

Advisen is conducting a series of webinars to inform the broker market regarding our capabilities. Our goal is to inspire you to support your existing clients more effectively and grow your book of business. The packed agenda for these sessions includes:

Benchmarking
Policy Comparison
Prospecting
Custom News Searches
Loss Triangles
Environmental Analytics
Worker's Comp Tool Kit

Here is the schedule:

Wendesday July 8th, 9am EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/377234745

Thursday, July 9th, 12pm EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/599460144

Wednesday July 22nd, 9am EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/866080537

Thursday, July 23th 12pm EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/976302496

Not convenient? Schedule training for you and your firm by emailing: support@advisen.com

AIRMIC D&O Benchmark Survey

2009-06-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Bournemouth in the UK attending the annual Risk Managers convention. It is a smaller version of the US RIMS convention. One of the reasons I was there was to participate in a version of "speed dating" - where AIRMIC released 4 press releases in the space of 45 minutes. For each release, there were comments by the AIRMIC staff and Board as well as the organization that is conducting the work associated with the release. AIRMIC was releasing with Advisen the results of our analysis of the D&O portion of their membership survey.

This AIRMIC D&O Benchmark Survey is the first exercise of its kind ever in the UK with 277 AIRMIC member companies taking part. While the survey is free to AIRMIC members, you can purchase the full report for US$150 (approximately £95) via http://corner.advisen.com/reports_airmic.html

XL/Berkshire Side A Endorsement

2009-06-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

XL released the following 8-K announcement regarding their new Side A endorsement: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/875159/000134100409001169/xl8k.htm

This endorsement is only available on new policies and renewals bound after June 9th, 2009 and, at this point, is not available mid-term. We have heard mixed reactions from the market and are interested in your views of its impact.