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Someone mentioned in GBS I should make a thread for this and instead of typing out a long-winded reply about my job, I figured I'd take the suggestion. What is high hazard insurance? High hazard insurance (as we refer to it, excess and surplus lines, or E&S as I'll refer to it going forward) is insurance for a risk that is more likely than usual to have a claim resulting in a loss. Many lines of coverage can fall into an E&S carrier - but for the sake of this thread, I am a Casualty underwriter. I also do some Property. E&S accounts may have loss issues due to an inherently risky aspect to the risk regardless of the efforts of the insured (like an eCig manufacturer), because the insured is lacking in some kind of loss control (like a bar with lax serving procedures), etc. Most people think of Lloyds of London when they hear about E&S (the Tina Turner's legs policy, for example, was a Lloyds policy). ...casualty? Casualty, in insurance, is liability coverage - basically if you cause bodily injury to damage to another person, that's a casualty loss. It doesn't necessarily mean a fatality or grievous bodily injury, though in E&S I do see a significant amount of those. So what do you insure? I specialize in products and contractors. I see a lot of amusement devices (which is what spawned this thread, a discussion about the Schlitterbahn indictment), firearms, tobacco/eCig, some special events, etc. If you can think of something crazy dangerous, I've probably seen it. Any major engineering disaster form the last decade I've probably seen. What rides will you absolutely not ride? I love amusement rides, sky diving, etc. That being said, there's a few things I avoid: 1. Non-permanent/traveling rides. AKA Carnival rides. The stress of being assembled, disassembled, reassembled, etc. over and over by (generally speaking) unlicensed employees and rarely inspected is a bad combination. For example, the OH state fair accident last year had a few contributing factors that, IMHO, will become more frequent causes of loss in the coming years. Bad metal stress/old equipment (operators will run these devices until they cannot be repaired or they are ordered to break them down for salvage, and even then they can sometimes be "salvaged" to a state with more lax requirements), a state inspection system that did not adequately budget for appropriate inspection tools and staffing, and the increasing American waistline. 2. Bounce houses (especially outdoors). They have the largest number of fatalities and serious injuries of any amusement device by magnitudes. It takes a surprisingly low amount of wind to lift them up, and it doesn't take a lot of height for a fall or drop to kill you or a kid. This is a hard declination at the company I work for (due to the propensity of minor child fatalities) but other E&S companies write them.  3. Water rides not at a water park (eg River Rapids rides). Their water sanitation is generally very poor compared to a water park. There's a very graphic/horrifying death case in Australia on a river rapids ride (Dreamworld Park) wherein 2 of the 4 fatalities were more or less mulched in the conveyor mechanism (and the other two drowned in less than a foot of water). This is not the only fatalities of this ride type, the tubes can flip in the right circumstances and are very, very difficult to upright. I have (and will again) written manufacturers of these. 4. Scramblers/Sizzlers. They just swing themselves apart, their failure rate is way over what I consider acceptable, I would never put a manufacturer of them on my book. Holy poo poo. What else should I watch out for? Office chairs. They will blow your rear end in a top hat out. No, really. Gas cans. Fake antivenom. That being said I cannot discuss any company's proprietary claim history - I can speak in generalizations, and I can speak in a lot of detail about things I've heard (but haven't worked on personally). Do you live your life in constant fear seeing how everything can and has rekt people? Actually it's kind of a relief in a weird way. Your odds of being destroyed even by things considered in E&S to be "high risk, imminent loss" are pretty low. Plus once you hit the wall of "everything might kill me, I might kill me with my own stupidity, holy poo poo," you learn to let go of a lot of risk fear. Other things I cannot give you any coverage recommendations as I am not an agent (E&S, generally speaking, is not written on state approved forms - I underwrite in all 50 states but I cannot tell you what you need for local compliance or interpret your business's needs). Plus there's personal lines people over here https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3488763 who will be better suited to your questions. If you have a high risk business and your normal insurance agent is lost, ask them to market it to a wholesale broker. Most agents for Allstate, State Farm, Farmers, etc. will have a network of wholesale brokers who will then take your account to a dozen E&S underwriters to let us fight over it - then your agent can help you interpret the E&S forms and terms. 13Pandora13 fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Mar 27, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 00:58
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Let’s start it off light: are there any instances you would consider funny as hell?
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Mar 27, 2018 01:03
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The Schlitterbahn indictment is here, I can't go into a great deal of discussion about it because I have seen two companies that manufactured components of the slide involved in the loss. I have not seen the park's insurance though, if they make it through this court case, I imagine I will eventually. Interestingly, because there was so much flagrantly illegal activity, they likely do not have coverage under their policy - whoever their carrier is likely paid out a significant sum on good faith (since it's a dead kid  ) but from a defense cost standpoint I have to imagine they're hosed.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:03
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And after funny whats the absolute worst thing you've encountered.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:06
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Aesop Poprock posted:Let’s start it off light: are there any instances you would consider funny as hell? I write a lot of sex toys and have a standing desk so my coworkers certainly find it funny. The area of the office I work in is all contractor underwriters only (besides me) so they see some poo poo. I have seen the ovipositor manufacturer account. My favorite G-rated account was a chicken vacuum. It doesn't kill the chickens, it vacuums them up and conveys them over to a different area (...or to the chicken doom processing line). This isn't the one I looked at, but it's same concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO5TikjZU3c Also a wasp farm. They raise them for cow farmers in the west, the wasps eat the biting flies that annoy the cows.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:07
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Solice Kirsk posted:And after funny whats the absolute worst thing you've encountered. A zip line manufacturer with multiple fatalities that had warning label verbiage that recommended not wearing helmets. I was absolutely aghast. A blind man being garbage compactor'd because he dropped his cell phone in the chute. Countless bailing machinery accounts with forceful amputations. Near spontaneous combustion of a spray-in waterproofing days after application. Really every day I see something new and most days I see something awful. As questions come up I'm sure I'll remember other things.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:11
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gently caress I remembered another one - guy being pulled behind a speedboat waterskiing and the boat driver mis-calculates the length of the tow + distance to the dock and just...yeah. Things like that suck because none of the manufacturers (the boat, the water skiing equipment, the life vest, etc.) had anything to do the loss happening, it was 100% human error, but a lot of times insurance pays out to make families whole. I know insurance has the reputation as being really evil but, at least in casualty, we do serve an important function. Property and casualty exist to make people financially whole after a bad event, a lot of the claims I see are literally the worst day of someone's life (or their family's lives). Health insurance companies are Satan though.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:16
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How often does that office chair poo poo happen, because it sounds terrible
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Mar 27, 2018 01:30
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13Pandora13 posted:most days I see something awful.  But the chair thing.. 
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Mar 27, 2018 01:36
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Kazoo Reverb posted:How often does that office chair poo poo happen, because it sounds terrible It's one of the more common losses I see, not just pneumatic blowout, but failure of the back or arm attachment points. It's important to select an office chair that is 1. adequate to your weight and 2. adequate to your use. Depending on your job (or gaming life  ) you could be spending up to 8 hours a day in the chair, it's not something you want to go with whatever's cheapest if you have any control over it at all. Chairs that are bolted and welded at break points are better than just one or the other. A 4 bolt pattern in the back is better than 2. Etc. Buying a brand that's been around for a while and has consistent reviews is a good starting point.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:37
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Papa Emeritus III posted:
I am glad you have Papa back finally 
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Mar 27, 2018 01:38
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Yay i have a new phobia
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Mar 27, 2018 01:38
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13Pandora13 posted:I write a lot of sex toys and have a standing desk so my coworkers certainly find it funny. The area of the office I work in is all contractor underwriters only (besides me) so they see some poo poo. wtf, that is the machine version of  Also, lol at the ovipositor account
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Mar 27, 2018 01:47
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13Pandora13 posted:I am glad you have Papa back finally Thanks! Applewhite made it.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:49
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Wamdoodle posted:Also, lol at the ovipositor account I will say this of sex toys: they are almost entirely claim-free, to my experience. I saw a lube manufacturer that had a bad contact burn loss, a penis pump producer what had and alleged penile tissue tearing claim, and a burn claim from a toy that ran too hot. Whether people don't file claims from embarrassment or what I couldn't say, but they're generally "good write" accounts that are only in E&S because standard market squeamish thinking about the possible loss scenarios. At the end of the day, that's my job: researching poo poo and predicting how it can fail or a consumer can make it fail.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:53
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This thread is my jam. 
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Mar 27, 2018 02:02
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Good thread
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Mar 27, 2018 02:19
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A funny story with publicly available information. We got in an account at one point that manufactures shark repellent devices. Seems super hazardous, right? I quoted it stupid cheap under the assumption that the overlap between "people who own this product" and "people who are bitten by sharks" would be basically 0 (the risk of being killed by a shark is about 1 in 4 million). I didn't get the account though, someone quoted it even cheaper than me. ...lol (just by sheer bad luck the kid jumped directly onto a shark - these no reason to believe the product is faulty from this event, if you jump onto a shark you're going to get bitten)
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Mar 27, 2018 02:33
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Do you cover summer camps, or know of any notable insurance incidents that have happened at one? I was a counsellor at a lakeside one for a couple seasons and we were always disappointed that ours was the only one in the area with no blob I assumed it was at least partially due to the fact their probably already sky high insurance would have risen even further
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Mar 27, 2018 04:19
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This is a good thread. Is there anything to lessen the risk of the bounce house injuries? Obviously you can’t keep kids jumping into each other or falling out of the thing but... tethered securely, on grass or non-pavement, etc? I have 2 young kids and this basically makes me want to not let them go on any rides as they get older. Lame dad.
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Mar 27, 2018 04:58
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How has your work intersected with the investigation of insurance fraud?
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Mar 27, 2018 05:02
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Bookmarked. Looking forward to reading cool gruesome/horrifying stories
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Mar 27, 2018 08:30
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Double posted on an edit somehow. 
Papa Emeritus III fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Mar 27, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 12:24
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Did you handle the Ohio fair thing or just very familiar with that incident? I noticed that you mentioned it a few times so it has me curious. Fair rides always kinda freaked me out. Another kid died at that same fair due to electric shock. Edit: same fair but different year.
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Mar 27, 2018 12:35
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I'm at work, sitting on my office chair like always waiting for it to explode THANKS OP
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Mar 27, 2018 12:52
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alpaca diseases posted:Do you cover summer camps, or know of any notable insurance incidents that have happened at one? We do! Summer camps, youth/religious centers, etc. A lot of them are written standard market. Things like the Blob, lake access with no attending life guard, etc. are generally not disqualifying items from insurance, but do make it $$$. Honestly the claims aren't super interesting on most, some broken limbs every now and then. Super rarely  allegations. Most camps have been around long enough that they have their poo poo pretty clockwork. Medical specialty camps (diabetes camp, etc.) tend to be written in a specialty division (Healthcare, Life Sciences, etc. depending on the company) due to the presence of nursing staff and I imagine they see worse claims.Increasingly, at Jewish camps especially, there's a lot of requests for no sublimits on assault and battery and incident response coverage. Mass shootings are a BIG thing in E&S right now. It used to be standard market wrote most firearms manufacturers and retail shops, now it's almost entirely E&S play. Philadelphia (owned by Tokio Marine) has non-renewed a huge portion of their firearms book and they used to be the player. Ruggan posted:This is a good thread. Definitely secure anchoring at multiple points with a diligent attendant on site during operation is a big thing. Immediately immediately evacuate the unit if there is any wind. Watch for small children to "disappear," they can slide in the gaps and suffocate. TheWeepingHorse posted:How has your work intersected with the investigation of insurance fraud? We don't run into a whole lot in Casualty, Property sees it some. In Casualty the most rampant kind of fraud is material misrepresentation, generally to secure cheaper terms. Frankly a lot of it goes undetected until there's a loss, then in investigation we find out they're full of poo poo and then find out there's no coverage because they committed fraud. Most commonly this will be an insured advising all their products are made by another company with a domestic policy granting them "additional insured - vendor" status (meaning in a loss, they would have coverage from the manufacturer we would be able to subrogate back to) actually importing everything from China. Sometimes (rarely) we get claimants trying to commit fraud but our claims team is amazing. Some carrier will just pay to get it over with but we'll fight it on principle (which has the benefit of also clearing our insured's name of wrongdoing). FYI, something can say "made in the USA" if it's assembled here and 100% of the components are made in China. They can lie on their label or website, but they can't lie on their insurance application. Papa Emeritus III posted:Did you handle the Ohio fair thing or just very familiar with that incident? I noticed that you mentioned it a few times so it has me curious. Fair rides always kinda freaked me out. Another kid died at that same fair due to electric shock. The manufacturer of the ride itself is European and, to my knowledge, does not have a domestic policy (though I expect they will going forward and I'll see it sooner or later). I have a Rainmanesque knowledge of amusement device accidents (and aviation disasters, even though I don't work for a carrier that writes aviation presently). We have seen the OH Fair's account though.  Most fair accounts are pretty boring - a lot of trip and falls, some A&B (don't fight a carny, you'll lose), some animal claims, occasional food poisoning allegations that are likely just overeating fried foods. Electric shocks happen occasionally (usually to operators), there's just so many wires under so much routine use on rough surfaces with pedestrian access.
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Mar 27, 2018 12:56
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Just on the aviation disasters thing, how risky is it in insurance terms for GA/small operators these days? I've seen a fair amount of publicity around the pressures on small operators in the US, and it's pretty hard to make a go of it here in Australia owing to the costs and distances.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:40
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ewe2 posted:Just on the aviation disasters thing, how risky is it in insurance terms for GA/small operators these days? I've seen a fair amount of publicity around the pressures on small operators in the US, and it's pretty hard to make a go of it here in Australia owing to the costs and distances. Most (though not all) small operators in the US are partnered with a larger carrier (eg Wisconsin Air is partnered with United and nearly all their flights are under the United brand - I expect United at minimum subsidizes their insurance pool premium if not outright pays it) and are insured in pool programs. I imagine the super-micro carriers that aren't in a partnership go into smaller specialty group captive pools by and large as well. I don't want to say aviation insurance is "cheap" but the pool system is generally not bad, there's enough air carriers paying into it and aviation disasters are extraordinarily rare. Since Australia is a smaller market (and you're a lot closer to airspace with things like active volcanoes along the edge of the Indo-Australian plate and possible terrorist activity in Indonesia) I imagine their pools cost a great deal more to enter. From an aviation products standpoint, it's a wider net as far as insurance carriers but still pretty specialized. Most E&S carriers, if they have an aviation program, it's limited. The real players in aviation products are only a few specific companies.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:31
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If you're reading this and you want to get a better idea of what's dangerous, unironically, watch America's Funniest Videos. They won't show videos where people get hurt, but if you see enough clips of someone falling badly through a backyard trampoline and miraculously not getting paralyzed, you get an idea there are a lot of people falling badly through backyard trampolines and not being as lucky. Bounce houses also come up a lot.
Anne Whateley fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 00:07
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i like nice words
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13Pandora13 posted:We have seen the OH Fair's account though. Oh wow. Your job sounds interesting as all hell. I keep peeking back in here to read updates. I live in Ohio, myself. I saw a thing on the news today that the maker of the ride that broke apart is going to pay off the family.
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Mar 28, 2018 00:21
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Anne Whateley posted:If you're reading this and you want to get a better idea of what's dangerous, unironically, watch America's Favorite Videos. They won't show videos where people get hurt, but if you see enough clips of someone falling badly through a backyard trampoline and miraculously not getting paralyzed, you get an idea there are a lot of people falling badly through backyard trampolines and not being as lucky. Bounce houses also come up a lot. The OSHA FAT/CAT reports are also a source of if you want to get an idea of the kind of stuff that hits my desk daily.For example https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=1253154.015 quote:Employee Is Smothered By Soybeans And Is Asphyxiated
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Mar 28, 2018 00:34
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Grain elevators are out for blood. It doesn't come up on AFV since it only sounds funny and it's super fatal! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_entrapment http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/us/on-us-farms-deaths-in-silos-persist.html
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Mar 28, 2018 00:41
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Anne Whateley posted:If you're reading this and you want to get a better idea of what's dangerous, unironically, watch America's Favorite Videos. Do you mean america's funniest home videos or is this something else?
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Mar 28, 2018 01:19
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Scudworth posted:Do you mean america's funniest home videos or is this something else?
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Mar 28, 2018 02:26
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Any particularly weird, or any absurdly improbable, claims? Or any cases of insurance fraud you've had to deal with?
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Mar 28, 2018 03:48
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Anne Whateley posted:Grain elevators are out for blood. It doesn't come up on AFV since it only sounds funny and it's super fatal! Grain elevators also explode.
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Mar 28, 2018 03:56
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Seen anything interesting/able you're to discuss from Disney?
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Mar 28, 2018 04:30
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I've just realised the term for a "bounce house" in the UK is a "bouncy castle". Very fitting. 
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Mar 28, 2018 11:29
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Jippa posted:I've just realised the term for a "bounce house" in the UK is a "bouncy castle". Very fitting. They were bouncy castles in Canada as well, at least in toronto
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Mar 28, 2018 12:29
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And in oz
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Mar 28, 2018 12:49
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