Risk Management Planning - 25 Quick Tips to get started | ClearRisk Blog

25 Quick Tips To Get Started With Your Risk Management Planning (Part 1 / 5 )

This is the first installment of five blog posts that summarize the 25 quick tips from my eBook, “Insurance Premiums Are Killing My Business”. The risk management ebook is a great start for any small to medium-sized business owners that are curious about starting the risk management planning process.

The tips below have been written with small to medium-sized businesses in mind, although the same principles should be employed by very large businesses.

1. Budget for Insurance Price Fluctuations. A key goal of any good risk management plan is to be aware that the insurance market is cyclical and that if prices have been flat or dropping for a few years that they will go up again. Plan for it by budgeting at the top end of the market.

2. Keep your company’s loss ratio low! A loss ratio is the premium paid divided by the cost of claims incurred. A low loss ratio will make your company attractive to insurers, which will result in them competing for your business. This will lead to your business being offered lower premiums.

3. Work on becoming a coveted account to insurers. Insurance companies can only underwrite a limited amount of business. Since an insurer can only insure a finite amount of risk, they will choose what they feel to be the most profitable risks to insure. It is important to make sure you are one of the good risks that they want as part of their book of business. ClearRisk can help you with this by supplying a formal risk management plan, which can be printed to show your insurance professional how you are mitigating risk.

4. Choose deductibles that result in the optimal cost of risk. The general principle is: the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. By analyzing past losses in conjunction with insurance premium quotes for different deductible options, it becomes clear which deductible is best.

5. Make sure your property values and your policy limits are accurate. Accurate values and limits mean you are adequately covered, and ensure that you aren’t paying an excessive amount.

Insurance and claims represent a large percentage of a business’s expenses but it is an area most business people know very little about. With some simple risk management planning and formalization, many businesses can realize significant savings. I wrote the risk management ebook to share some of the simple things these businesses can do.

The full eBook, ““Insurance Premiums Are Killing My Business” can be found for free on the ClearRisk site, along with other helpful risk management whitepapers.

Be sure to follow this blog to hear the remaining 20 quick tips.

Do you have any other simple tips you’d like to share? Just leave a post in the comments section.

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Read Part 2 / 5 here: 25 Quick Tips To Get Started With Your Risk Management Planning (Part 2/5)

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4 Responses to “25 Quick Tips To Get Started With Your Risk Management Planning (Part 1 / 5 )”

SL on January 26th, 2011

Craig,

Congrats on the recent VC funding announcement.

I haven’t seen the next 4 posts so can’t say what else you’ll cover but I have 3 suggestions you might skip:
#1. Record Keeping
Often when I receive new insurance submissions they include a loss run (a listing of all insured losses). I’m always impressed when a listing of all incidents is included whether they turned into insurance claims or not. This shows the company keeps good records and manages risk well. It also shows how many incidents result in claims. There could be 100 incidents but only 1 claim, which doesn’t look great, or 3 incidents and 1 claim.

#2 Moral Hazard
Show your insurance broker and company you’re a low moral hazard. In layman’s terms moral hazard is the propensity to prevent claims and/or submit fraudulent claims. Find ways to show you will take care to prevent claims and reduce the severity/frequency of claims.

#3 Ask
Ask what you can do to lower your premium. Installing a burglar alarm, implementing a standard contract, or using waivers might reduce your premium. Often if you ask the insurance company will be happy to tell you what they used to develop the premium and thus what you can do to lower it.

Hope that helps,
-An Underwriter
Craig Rowe on February 4th, 2011

Thanks for your response! I think those are some great ideas. I always recommend that insurance consumers take a much more active role in marketing their risk. We have 4 more upcoming blog posts that will provide more tips on how to do this.