The Principal Desk
Above $25 million in total insured value, the question stops being price.
At this size the program is layered, shared, or both. What matters is whether the layers agree with each other, and who actually read them. On this desk the answer to the second question is the principal of the agency, every time.
Why the line is real
Below the line you buy a package. Above it you assemble a tower.
A single carrier can hold a mid-size habitational account on one form. A $60 million schedule usually cannot sit with one carrier at a price anyone will pay, so it gets built: a primary layer, excess layers above it, sometimes quota share participation across a single layer, occasionally a separate placement for the catastrophe exposed addresses.
Every one of those pieces is a separate negotiation with a separate underwriter, and the pieces are only as good as their agreement with each other. Which means the failure mode at this size is almost never an uninsured building. It is a tower that does not respond the way the summary said it would.
What goes wrong
Six things we look for in a layered program.
- 01
Valuation methodology that is not consistent across the schedule
Replacement cost on some addresses and actual cash value on others, usually as an artifact of when each building was added.
Which means two identical buildings on one schedule settle differently, and nobody finds out which is which until one of them burns.
- 02
Margin clause and occurrence limit of liability endorsements
These quietly convert the blanket limit you believe you bought back into a scheduled limit, building by building, at the values on file.
Which means the blanket you are paying for pays out as a schedule, capped by a number somebody typed years ago.
- 03
Excess layers that do not follow form
A layer that grants narrower terms than the layer beneath it creates a gap in the middle of the tower.
Which means a loss large enough to reach that layer stops at a term nobody knew was there.
- 04
Sublimit erosion across a shared layer
Flood, earthquake, and named storm sublimits stated per occurrence in one place and in the annual aggregate in another.
Which means the second event in a season is covered on paper and not covered in fact.
- 05
Ordinance and law that is not consistent layer to layer
The coverage most likely to be needed on an older asset is the coverage most likely to be inconsistently granted above the primary.
Which means a code-driven rebuild is funded at the primary and unfunded above it.
- 06
Time element assumptions that do not match the rent roll
Business income limits and periods of indemnity set years ago against a rent roll that has moved substantially since.
Which means the income replacement stops months before the asset is back in service.
Who reads it
The principal, not a service team.
Every schedule that comes to this desk is read by a principal of the agency. The markets are approached by the principal. The renewal call is taken by the principal. There is no account team between you and the person who did the work, because at this size the work is the relationship.
That is only possible because the desk is small on purpose. We take a limited number of schedules each renewal season and we say no to the rest, rather than take them and hand them down.
We are newer under the Bindly name than the buildings we insure. What we are not new to is reading a tower.
The offer at this size
The same five days, scoped to a program review.
Send the layer schedule, the declarations for the primary and each excess layer, the statement of values, and five years of loss runs. In five business days you get a written structural read: where the layers disagree, where valuation is inconsistent, and where the summary you were given does not match the forms underneath it.
If we look at the program and conclude we are not the right shop to place it, we will say so and tell you what kind of shop is. At this size that is a more useful answer than an enthusiastic one.
Schedules reach this desk by referral or by sending the documents. There is no form beyond that.
Access
Some of the programs we place through are not open to every agency.
Large habitational, healthcare and hospitality property is placed through a mix of open-market wholesale and closed programs. We hold exclusivity on certain programs and place highly competitive markets alongside them.
We do not name them here, for the same reason we do not print carrier logos. An appointment is not an endorsement, and a program is worth naming on the authorization that opens it, not on a marketing page. What we will say is that if your current broker cannot reach them, that is not a reflection on your broker. It is how the programs are built.
A market authorization lets this desk quote those programs alongside whatever your broker returns, on the same schedule, in the same season. Nothing about that requires you to move the account.
And we will not block a market to protect a submission. We approach a market only where you have authorized it in writing, in the order we agree with you, and we tell you which markets were approached and what each one said. An incumbent who has to guess at that is not being outworked. They are being disadvantaged, and eventually so are you.
How we place
Admitted and surplus, direct and wholesale.
We place through admitted carriers and surplus lines markets, direct and through wholesale brokers, including layered and shared placements. We service accounts above $25 million in total insured value.
We do not publish carrier names. Appointments are not exclusive, a logo is not an argument, and putting a carrier's name on a marketing page implies an endorsement that no carrier has given us.
The calendar
Ninety to one hundred and twenty days.
A large property program goes to market ninety to one hundred and twenty days before it expires, because the markets that matter need sixty to ninety of those days to underwrite it properly. For a program that renews on the first of January, that means the schedule is in our hands in the first week of October.
After that the honest answer is a plan for the next renewal rather than a rushed submission into this one, and we will tell you that instead of taking the file. If you are reading this inside the window, send the schedule and we will tell you the same day whether it belongs on this desk.
Fit
Where we are the wrong shop.
Programs that need captive or alternative risk structuring
If the right answer is a captive, a group captive, or a structured retention program, that is specialist work and we will say so rather than sell around it.
Accounts already brokered by a national firm where the incumbent is performing
If the tower is well built and the service is good, moving it is churn dressed up as diligence. Have us read it, keep the report, and stay where you are.
Owners who want a market approached before the program has been read
Going to market without a structural read is how a program gets priced on the incumbent's assumptions for another year.
Schedules under $25 million in total insured value
Those belong on the property desk, which is faster and cheaper for you than a program review, and the read you get there is the same one. Start at the Five-Day Gap Report and we will route it.
Send the layer schedule. Get a written structural read in five business days.
Declarations for the primary and each excess layer, the statement of values, and five years of loss runs. You keep the read whatever you decide to do with the program.