You have an insured who has declared bankruptcy. How does this affect any premiums the insured owes? How does it affect any return premiums due the insured? How does bankruptcy affect cancellation due to nonpayment of premium? Can the insurer cancel on the basis that the bankruptcy itself represents an increase in risk? While we…
You’re a small agency with a lot of big business connections, but you don’t have the markets or the staff to sell and service these types of major commercial accounts. One possibility is to broker them through a larger agency. While there are a number of contractual, E&O, and other issues (and pitfalls) to consider,…
Almost a year ago, we ran an article called “13 Caveats in Using E&S Markets.” While there are issues that agents should be aware of when using E&S markets, in an increasingly hard market, we think it’s time we pointed out the many pluses that E&S markets bring to the table. To do that, we…
The insured is sued for damages arising out of an occurrence that took place many years ago. The insured is unable to find the policy in force at that time, so the insurer says they won’t respond. What do you do when a policy is lost?
An insured makes a payment by personal check on a policy that is scheduled to cancel for nonpayment. The check is received before the cancellation date and the company issues a reinstatement notice. Three weeks later, the insured and agent receive another cancellation notice stating that the policy is cancelled retroactively to the previous cancellation…
We’ve recently received several questions about trust accounts. How does an agency with an internal premium finance program know if it is in or out of trust? Can a trust be held in an interest bearing account? In this article, we’ll take a look at some of these issues. As other arise, we’ll be updating…
One of your insurers has initiated a surcharge program for renewals of insureds who have had even a single claim in the past three years. Is this legal? Is it equitable? What do you think? To find out what our faculty think about this, read their heated debate.
An insured’s account renewed in May, but the policies were not delivered until June. The agent believed that late delivery made these policies June items, payable to the insurer by August 15, 45 days following closing of the June account. However, when the insurer didn’t receive payment on the policies by JULY 15, they put…
An agency would like to provide additional services to valued clients. One of the suggestions was to provide a drop box for customer payments for both agency and direct bill payments assuming it would be used after hours and on weekends. From an E&O perspective, what are the risks of providing this service? Would a…
Do you have a good handle on your accounts receivable for agency-billed business? How do you measure up to industry standards or best practices ranges?
