Helping a healthcare provider change with the times
February 16, 2017
Zurich helps streamline a complex insurance transition for expanding company.
As a business changes, its insurance needs change, too: A healthcare provider supplying in-home services to individuals with developmental and physical challenges underwent a merger that substantially increased its overall program size and complexity. The broker was seeking new workers’ compensation coverage for the client, which wanted to move from guaranteed coverage to a deductible structure.
The broker contacted Zurich, which was already the incumbent on two of the client’s lines of business.
“We were given a clear opportunity,” said Zurich Senior Underwriter Bobby Steinsdoerfer, who immediately reached out to his colleagues.
Responding to the challenge: “We were very responsive and first to quote,” Bobby said. “Then we were very responsive getting terms on the table.”
That wasn’t as easy as it may sound, because the company’s services carry a level of risk that required ongoing communication.
“There was a lot of back and forth in understanding what they wanted,” Bobby said. “Coming out of guaranteed costs is always interesting. It involves working with the broker and the customer to find what program structure makes sense and then working through the financials with them. We were able to get ahead of the effective date, which allowed us the appropriate time to review options, underwrite the various operations, engage loss control and claims and work with credit risk to come up with flexible options on the collateral position.”
A clear choice: The end result? A win for Zurich and the customer. “Even with providing four different deductible options, we were the first insurer to offer formal terms, which the broker said was a huge part of our eventual success,” Bobby said.
Also key were the strengths of Zurich’s Risk Engineering and Claims departments. “The insured thought that they could, by coming to us, be able to use a lot of our best practices to lower their ultimate insurance costs,” Bobby said.
In short, responsiveness paid dividends — but it was backed up by Zurich’s breadth of service.
“We’re building teams around commercial insurance,” Bobby said. “The ability to leverage our industry knowledge and insights, and overlay that with our lines of business offerings, is really powerful. This was a great win with the broker, for our private equity book and for our healthcare segment. We were able to find a commercial insurance solution for the customer.”