After years of grudgingly accepting the status quo, risk managers are finally pushing for service improvements from brokers and carriers that some in the industry wonder why they didn't demand long ago.

Buyers lately have become emboldened to insist on more accountability from their insurance vendors after bid-rigging and contingency fee abuse by major brokers and carriers was exposed by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, observers said.

Settlements spurring major changes in standard operating procedures among brokers and insurers prompted the Risk and Insurance Management Society last month to hold a closed session in New York to sort out what buyers want.

The biggest complaint aired by corporate insurance buyers at the RIMS forum was over the time it takes carriers to issue a policy. Insurers have been notorious slow-pokes in getting a completed contract to buyers–a situation tolerated for years.

“The change hasn't occurred because not enough people have stood up and said, 'I'm not going to allow this to happen on my contract,'” Mario Vitale, chief executive officer of Willis North America in New York, told National Underwriter. (Mr. Vitale attended the RIMS meeting, which was off-limits to the press.)

“It was a very substantial issue–no doubt about it,” he said. “There was a demand from the buyer for much better service in this area, and I think it's about time that buyer started screaming about this.”

He said insurers are traditionally slow to issue policies because in the past, insurance deals were sealed with a handshake or a binder, which has become unacceptable.

Mr. Vitale said presenting a policy properly and on time is “one of the greatest challenges we face right now as an industry,” adding that brokers could greatly help the process by supplying a carrier's on-time track record to the client. Having that information, he said, could “help the client make a meaningful decision” when choosing a carrier.

Also at the meeting was Susan Meltzer, assistant vice president of risk management at Aviva Canada Inc.–a property-casualty insurer in Toronto. Speaking in her capacity as president of the International Federation Of Risk & Insurance Management Associations, she said risk managers need to be pushing hard for insurers to “get the policy out,” and for documentation.

“It's a broken record,” said Ms. Meltzer, who was president of RIMS in 1999-2000. “Get the policy out, not late–and right.”

Peter Durkalski, corporate vice president with Arthur J. Gallagher in Itasca, Ill., who also attended the forum, said a member of RIMS “had a great idea. She said she doesn't pay the premium until she gets the policy.” He recounted that if the insurer “dared” to send a notice of cancellation before the policy was received, “she said, 'I look forward to that opportunity. I take that to the CEO and make it uncomfortable for them.' She was very clear and this actually happened,” Mr. Durkalski noted.

“I thought if more buyers were to do that, then the buyers could change the industry,” he said. “It's like the movie 'Network,' when the guy yelled out the window, 'We're not going to take it anymore!'”

Mr. Durkalski also reported that “it was brought up in the [RIMS] meeting that you need a quality vendor–but also a quality client. If the client gives the underwriter information late, or if it's inaccurate, then the whole process gets held up.”

Mr. Vitale recalled a discussion of potential solutions to the problem that included penalties for carriers that don't deliver a policy on time. “There's got to be a positive and a negative reward system here for better performance,” he said, adding that too many in the industry “are too accepting of the status quo.”

He said insurance is one of the last businesses to “go through the transformation a lot of the other financial service industries have gone through, and we haven't done a good job of changing our ways.”

He said a policy should be provided when the deal is closed. “On the commercial side, somehow we think it's okay to let this drag on, and that is a major problem.” The carrier, he added, needs to realize it's no longer acceptable to get a policy to the client “sometimes a year or more after the fact.”

Observers say improvements in the negotiating process are a direct benefit of recent investigations by Mr. Spitzer. Risk managers demanding to meet with all parties in the process are now finding little resistance, they contend.

Karen Beier, RIMS' director of member and chapter services, said the RIMS perspective is that all parties should focus on meeting the needs of the client.

To help streamline the process, she said RIMS has revised its best practices Quality Improvement Process. The original 39 guidelines have been consolidated to 30. They include guidance on service agreements between risk managers and the broker, underwriter, safety or loss control consultant, and claims consultant.

Because of the ongoing investigations, the guidelines were organized on the principles of integrity, transparency and client-centricity, noted Ms. Beier, who is vice president of risk management for the Shaklee Corp. in Pleasanton, Calif.

Janice Ochenkowski, RIMS' director and treasurer, said what she hopes for when negotiating a policy is “no surprises–I think that's a basic rule of doing business.”

It's important that risk managers and brokers be able to talk about compensation openly, added Ms. Ochenkowski, director of Global Risk Management for Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. in Chicago. “Certainly, we all expect the broker and insurer will be compensated appropriately for the services they are providing, so we want to understand why costs are going up, if they are, or what the components of those costs are so we can appropriately advise our organizations…should the occasion arise.”

She said the decision about whether compensation should be a buyer-paid fee or insurer-paid commission “ought to be made between the client and the broker.”

However, while many brokers are making strides to accommodate buyers, Ms. Meltzer observed that some are just maintaining the status quo. “[Brokers] are doing exactly what the regulators and their settlement [with Mr. Spitzer and others] are telling them to do–no more, no less,” she said, adding that brokers “should have been including the insured in meetings all along.”

For those buyers who have not been assertive about participating in negotiations in the past, the Spitzer settlements “opened a door that no one can close in their faces. This is a major benefit,” she said.

Mark T. Willis, executive vice president of AIG's domestic brokerage group in Chicago, who did not attend the RIMS forum, said his company has been looking for ways to be more efficient and responsive to buyers. One key to speeding up the process, he said, lies in getting accurate and up-to-date information.

According to Mr. Willis, AIG has traditionally made an effort to meet with buyers, but is receiving more requests for meetings, and is spending more time with customers than ever. “Risk managers want to tell their story directly to the underwriter,” he said. “They want to say things that maybe the application does not say, and they want to make sure their operations and their expectations are clear.”

He added that AIG, in turn, wants to see their customers' operations before quoting.

Mr. Willis said AIG also is including claims personnel in client meetings now. “The best time to get a relationship going is early on,” he explained, so the relationship is “sound, and not an adversarial one.”

Special Reports /

Fed-Up Buyers Push For Better Service

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