How a Global Food Manufacturer Avoided a 300% Renewal Increase

Challenge

The late notice of a 300% renewal increase left the company little time to act. It hadn't gone to market in four years, and its loss control reports were outdated. A limited number of carriers were willing to insure food manufacturers, and underwriters who had previously worked with the insured and had lost the business remembered; they weren't anxious to reengage.

In a hard market where pricing and capacity were already a challenge, this company was facing a difficult renewal.

Solution

Hylant's first objective was to leverage underwriters and C-suite relationships to convince carriers to commit to honest, unbiased program reviews. Simultaneously, the team spent hours scrubbing and validating data, and placing the information into a format that carriers could quickly understand.

Confident in its risk control processes and loss history, the client elected to increase its self-insured retention, thus making it much easier for carriers to say "yes" to the account. Although capacity was available, the cost was prohibitive and the team knew it would need to restructure the manufacturer's risk financing methodology to make the program work. After discussing various solutions, the team moved the coverage gaps into a separate captive cell, resulting in a completed program.

Identifying a carrier partner was the final challenge. An insurer that was committed to the global space, had a desire to grow and had the ability to handle complex accounts was identified as the perfect partner. The new program, while more expensive than the expiring program, was several million dollars less than what had originally been proposed, and it did not include mandatory underwriting requirements.