A company’s insurance contracts have always been among its most valuable assets – and the on-going cost of premiums is an ever more significant item of expenditure. The extent to which companies fully understand and manage their insurance assets effectively is, however, increasingly and understandably, a subject of great interest.
Much has been written in recent years about the deteriorating relationship between insurers, brokers and their corporate insureds. For example, many in the boardrooms of corporate Britain will have taken note of the recent criticisms of the inter-relationship between insurers and brokers made by the New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer and the published reports raising questions about broker practice in the UK. Suspicion has replaced trust and with that, the potential for disputes over insurance coverage and related matters has increased.
