SES Continues to Trailblaze with Industry Best Practices
SES continuously evaluates its role in the industry and how we can help strengthen our clients' business. This recently has let us to focus on best practices for insuring Trust properties. This began with presentations at SES Trust Advisory Council 2014. We have since exchanged ideas with a client panel and heard their concerns about the effects of compliance on fiduciary business. As a result, we have identified a number of new opportunities to address best practices and solutions to assist with
- Risk Mitigation
- Rate/loss ration stabilization
- Improved use of resources
While this process will be ongoing, the following is an abridged version of solutions SES offers in support of best practices and risk mitigation:
- External Policy Review – External/outside policies retention can be a risky business. We encourage you to review the policies to ensure the coverage you think exists is actually provided. For instance, standard homeowners policies offer
- No flood or earthquake coverage;
- Limited coverage for water damage or ordinance or law;
- Co-insurance penalties;
- Limited extended coverage;
- Lower liability limits;
- Inadequate ways of documenting and protecting your interest in the property.
TIMS® now offers an online tool for comparison of the standard HO-3 policy form against your Master Policy to support actions and decisions to transition trust real estate to better coverage available under the Master Policy.
- 360Value® Replacement Cost Reports – SES offers direct access to 360Value® at no charge to run your own valuations. Getting the Value Right A scheduled run of your full schedule comparison is available as part of the renewal process. Insuring real estate at the most accurate value can insulate the Master Trust Policy by:
- Minimizing rate volatility;
- Protecting against poor loss ratio;
- Improving carrier satisfaction; and
- Supporting long term carrier relationships
- Workflow - Would you like to create structure around a set of tasks to ensure consistency and integrity in the process? Workflow offers an opportunity to add structure and review to your insurance related activity. The first process – Available now - is complete and we are interested in hearing how the workflow framework can assist with other processes.
- System Alerts & Improved Property Attributes – Poor data results in illogical conditions and can often hurt claims results and affect rating. Available now - SES will introduce system alerts as an opportunity to improve data and address other actionable items for review.
- Flood Zone Determinations – The majority of Master Trust Policies contain deductible wording for Special Flood Hazard Areas (defined by your policy) that makes the trust responsible for the maximum amount of coverage available through National Flood Insurance Program before the Master Trust Policy responds. Do you know which properties are affected? We can help you define exposure. Certified flood zone determinations are available for a minimal, one-time charge per property for the life of the trust to define the exposure. Flood Zone Policy Placement – Once you know what your exposure is, it is critical to get individual National Flood Insurance Policies in place to mitigate expense impact for properties in Special Flood Hazard Areas. SES can place policies on your behalf to protect your trust assets.
- Flood Zone Policy Placement – Once you know what your exposure is, it is critical to get individual National Flood Insurance Policies in place to mitigate expense impact for properties in Special Flood Hazard Areas. SES can place policies on your behalf to protect your trust assets.
- Excess Earthquake & Flood – Earthquakes aren’t limited to California – or the Pacific Northwest or New Madrid. Today’s news reports have identified activity throughout the country. You may or may not realize that the industry offers catastrophe (earthquake and flood) limits on a policy aggregate basis – not on an occurrence or location basis. We can review your values with you and offer higher limits to protect assets as a part of your renewal process.
- Excess Liability – Third party claims and litigation have the potential for greater threat to property assets than physical damage. Selection of a limit for liability will depend on a number of factors based on your organization’s philosophy on liability exposure. XS Liability -Why Purchase
- Group Personal Umbrella – Our newest product offers a response to grantors, co-trustees and beneficiaries who are resistant to moving their homeowners’ policies for fear of losing their multi-policy discounts. This competitively priced umbrella will be available soon and will offer higher limits to a specific trust and can include additional property, autos and watercraft. Its placement offers more control over the primary coverage placements for real estate assets.
Your SES Team will discuss these opportunities and more. If we can be of assistance immediately, please call us at (800) 955-4737 for more information.