IF SOMEONE referred to your newborn child as “the plumb bob,”you probably wouldn't be thrilled. But for me, the comment conveyedgenuine closeness and affection from my main group of clients: landsurveyors. Our agency insures about 3,000 of them nationwide andthey account for at least 80% of our business.

For years, land surveyors were the invisible professionals-atleast from the insurance industry's standpoint. Most insurerslumped them in with architects and engineers, even though they havequite different characteristics. This lack of specificity gave methe chance to develop a successful program. In this article, I'lltell you how I went about doing it.

I'm very relationship-oriented, which is one reason I've alwaysliked the program approach to business. It gives me an opportunityto really focus on a specific class and get to know the people init. In the best programs, agents truly bond with their clients-andthat certainly happened with the land surveyors and me.

It all started about 13 years ago when I was a partner at anall-lines agency. We had a walk-in client-a land surveyor-lookingfor commercial auto insurance for his three vehicles. Ourconversation soon expanded to the rest of his coverages, includingprofessional liability insurance. That's when he stated that theinsurance industry didn't seem to know that land surveyors evenexisted, and that all he could get was an architects and engineersprofessional liability policy.

After I put together the best package of coverages I could forthis client, he suggested, in essence, that I look into developinga program for his profession, so I decided to investigate thematter. I got in touch with the Professional Land Surveyors ofColorado and began learning more about their members. Increasingly,they hold bachelor's degrees in land surveying. Some work inone-person shops generating perhaps $100,000 in annual billings;others may be employed in concerns doing $10 million to $12 millionof work a year.

One way to think about land surveyors is that on a wide range ofprojects-encompassing the construction of everything from bridges,tunnels and roads to houses, condos and manufacturing plants-theyare the first ones on the scene. Surveyors also are essential tothe simple transfer of property. For instance, if you refinanceyour home, in all likelihood a land surveyor working for a titlecompany will prepare an improvement location certificate attestingto the fact that your house and any detached garage, shed, etc., donot encroach on adjoining property, and that no improvement on yourneighbor's property encroaches on yours.

The work of land surveyors is filed in the recorder of deedsoffice in every county in the country. Some perform boundarysurveys, in which they lay out property lines and find surveymonuments (also called control points), which in some cases may be200 years old, that denote property corners. They also setmonuments themselves. Some surveyors specialize in boundary surveysfor one sort of client, like ranchers. Others may work withnumerous types.

Some surveyors specialize in highway work, typically working assubcontractors to private contractors or the U.S. Department ofTransportation. Other surveyors work with property developers,creating subdivision plats and laying out the locations of streets,driveways, gutters, curbs and sidewalks. The public sector is a bigemployer of land surveyors, who may work for the U.S. GeologicalSurvey; the Bureau of Land Management; the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers; and numerous state and local highway departments,planning departments and redevelopment agencies. Surveyors may doextremely specialized work. For instance, a Missouri clientinvolved in geotechnical surveying tracks the changing boundariesof the Mississippi River.

Once I got a good feel for what land surveyors do and for theexposures they face, I worked with Hartford Insurance Co. todevelop a customized package product for land surveyors, coveringeverything but their professional liability insurance. Forinstance, an extension to the property form provides coverage fortheir equipment on and off premises. In the past decade or so, landsurveyors' equipment has become extremely high tech. Gone are mostof the simple transits of the past, replaced by robotic equipmentthat can be used to calculate horizontal and vertical angles,record altitude, and electronically measure the distance tovertical rods held by land surveyors' rod men. Later the datarecorded by the robotics can be downloaded into a surveyor'scomputer, where a program will convert it into a set of drawings.On large projects, surveyors also use satellite signal receivers totap into the Global Positioning System and get a precise fix on alocation.

It is essential that this equipment operate properly. Anaccident involving an instrument may leave no external evidence ofdamage, but if its calibration is no longer exact, its use couldcreate a professional liability exposure for the land surveyor.Therefore, under our program the insurer is required to pay for thereplacement of equipment if its accuracy can no longer beguaranteed. The property is even covered if it is in someone else'scare, custody or control; e.g., when it is in the hands of adelivery service.

I received a commitment to the package policy from The Hartford.At the same time, I obtained an endorsement from the ProfessionalLand Surveyors of Colorado and began selling the program.Eventually, however, I had differences with my partners, who wantedto see the agency focus on other accounts. Therefore in 1998, Ileft the agency and started Assurance Risk Managers. Before doingso, I told the surveyors association that realistically I could notmake this move if they didn't back me-and they enthusiastically didso, not only promoting the program heavily to their own members butalso opening doors for me to land surveyors associations in Utah,Montana, Washington and other states.

I've never regretted my decision. Land surveyors are private,independent and a little aloof, but I've never had any problemputting on jeans and cowboy boots and going out with a survey crew.Over time, many clients have told me, “You've become one of us,”which I take as a high compliment. Four years ago, when my son wasborn several weeks prematurely, I was surprised to get call aftercall of congratulations in my hospital room. It turned out that oneof my clients had sent an e-mail announcement to the members of thestate association, congratulating all 386 of them on becoming“uncles,” and providing not only the number of the phone in my roombut also describing the length and weight of my son in surveyor'sterminology. “Essentially,” concluded the surveyor who sent out themessage, “he's no bigger than a plumb bob,” a term that some of the“uncles” then used as the baby's nickname.

The associations have been great about helping me market myprogram. What I offer them is a product with customized forms andattractive rates that I make available exclusively to theirmembers. (Indeed, it has become an effective membership-recruitingtool for them.) I also take an active role in the associations,attending all their conventions and conducting risk-managementseminars for their members. For the Professional Land Surveyors ofColorado, I've even become a member of the board. My onlyexpectation of the associations, in turn, is to promote the programin their newsletters, and to publish articles that I write aboutinsurance matters and the program in their journals, magazine-likepublications they send to members on a quarterly or semiannualbasis.

The package product for the program includes general liability,property (premises and equipment), workers compensation, commercialauto (including hired/nonowned auto), umbrella and everything elsea typical small business might need. Separately, we provideprofessional liability insurance on specialized forms. We startedout working with Admiral Insurance Co. and a Lloyd's syndicate.More recently, we've formed a relationship with CNA/Victor O.Schinnerer, which has accepted land surveyors working in most anydiscipline, including condominium construction, which many othermarkets will not write.

All the professional liability markets we work with have createdforms for land surveyors that are distinct from those they use toinsure architects and engineers. The insurance industry has changedover the last five years, and “hybrid” risks-land surveyors thatderive at least 20% of their revenue from engineering work-can becovered on an architects and engineers form from which exclusionsapplicable to land surveying have been dropped. But clients whowork strictly in surveying remain better off with a land surveyorsprofessional liability form.

For land surveyors involved in residential or commercial realestate construction, it's important to ensure their professionalliability policies do not have a construction-defects exclusion.When mold or other damage arises from alleged construction defects,property owners typically sue everyone involved in the project. Inmost cases, the land surveyors are eventually dismissed from thesuits-I have yet to have a client pay a construction defectclaim-but in the meantime they need defense coverage.

It's desirable to get defense costs covered in addition topolicy limits and full retroactive coverage, as some markets willprovide. Project-specific limits also can be arranged.

Submissions

We work with clients primarily by telephone and e-mail, usingthe association meetings for most face-to-face contact. We haveauthority to bind the package product and can turn around quotesfor professional liability insurance within 24 hours. For theprofessional liability quote, we require a completed application towhich is attached a list of five or so projects that can give anunderwriter a feel for the type of work a land surveyor does. Wealso ask for specimen copies of surveyors' professional servicescontracts, sample brochures and addresses for their Web sites.

We need r?sum?s of anyone authorized to sign maps, drawings andother documents. Typically, this would include all licensed landsurveyors in the firm and any civil engineers. Generally, thesepeople have a seal of authority, displaying their license number,which they stamp on documents and then sign. The signed, stampeddocuments become court records. Consequently, underwriters want tobe assured that anyone signing them is qualified to do so.
The application asks for a detailed breakdown of the client'sbilling in the current and past year, and a projection for the yearahead. I advise clients to be as realistic as possible with theprojections.

It's also important to be as accurate as possible in thebreakdown. The percentages of revenue derived from work onhighways, subdivisions, condos, etc., affect the premiumsignificantly. Underwriters look closely at the amount of workinvolving residential construction because of theconstruction-defects exposure. Some insurers will not even offer aquote to land surveyors who have clients in the oil and gasindustry. Geotechnical surveying is another problematic exposurefor many underwriters.

Underwriters also recommend, but do not always require, thatland surveyors work with written contracts. Most carriers, however,expect contracts when land surveyors render service under the termsof written work orders from contractors and other clients. If landsurveyors work with subcontractors, underwriters expect them toobtain certificates of insurance from the subs naming them asadditional insureds.

We give underwriters as much information as we can. Ourobjective is to have them develop relationships with our clientstoo. We want them to get to the point where they feel they are notsaying yes or no to a file, but to an actual person. We want tofoster a three-way partnership among the underwriter, the clientand ourselves.

By taking this approach, we sometimes can get exceptional thingsdone. Recently, one of our long-time clients had a serious claim,which may max out the policy's limit.

“You made a mistake,” I said. “Tell me some things you can do toprevent this from happening again. Give me something I can take tothe underwriter.” Together we drafted a letter stating that theinsurer was going to pay for the loss regardless of whether theystayed on the risk. Then we described the changes the insured wasmaking in his operation and explained how we believed those changeswould prevent the recurrence of such a claim. In essence, we didour best to “re-sell” the account to the underwriting team. In theend, the insurer renewed it. Understandably, the premium wasconsiderably higher, but the client still obtained coverage lessexpensively than he could have anywhere else-assuming he could haveobtained it at all.

Working with land surveyors has given me great personal andprofessional satisfaction. The program business approach toinsurance has enabled me to take the measure of my clients'community and really become part of it. I can't begin to put aprice on the mutual trust, loyalty and respect that make up thefoundation of my relationship with land surveyors, but they arecrucial to my agency's success.

This sure beats just “selling insurance.”

Lisa Isom is the president of Assurance Risk Managers, which shefounded in 1998. The agency has seven employees and derives 80% ofits business from land surveyors, with the remainder coming fromarchitects, engineers and other risks. Ms. Isom entered theinsurance business about 20 years ago in Missouri with the brokerFrank B. Hall, where she was a producer in a program for the oiland gas industry. She later worked at, and was a partner in, aColorado independent insurance agency before starting her ownbusiness.