Mactavish

“Willis applauds Mactavish’s continued tenacity in challenging the status quo and shining a torch on the fact that we as an industry must be better at demonstrating the immense value insurance provides in supporting businesses. As a change leader, Willis endorses the study’s findings which are in line with our drive to challenge inefficient insurance practices and lead reform through innovation such as our unique carrier benchmarking tool, the Willis Quality Index.”

“The Mactavish report raises challenges for the insurance sector that Zurich is committed to addressing. We look forward to working with brokers and customers to drive forward its recommendations.”

“The intellectual integrity and market-wide experience that underpins Mactavish’s Placing Reform Report has resulted in a robust, pragmatic paper which clearly points the way forward for our industry. AXA Corporate Solutions supports the findings of this report which closely mirror our own long standing belief that customers, brokers and insurers must work together in a more informed and co-operative manner than is currently the case. Our confidence in the pertinence of the report is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that a number of our Client Commitments, such as ‘scenario testing’ policy wordings, are based on the report’s findings.”

“The placement reform report flags a number of tough yet fundamentally addressable challenges. Aviva Corporate & Speciality Risk (CSR) will be working with clients and brokers to address the report findings and by including them within the Aviva CSR value proposition.”

“The Mactavish report identifies a series of issues around the insurance placing process. What stands out is that these issues appear now to be taking place against a background of dynamically changing risk exposures within insurance buyers’ organisations. Under English insurance law the responsibility for making a fair presentation of the risk falls squarely on the insurance buyer. A failure to do so can put the entire insurance protection at risk. The ultimate objective for all parties in the insurance transaction - buyers, brokers and insurers - should be certainty as to the agreed risk transfer. That is the best way to avoid disputes which are costly, time consuming and serve none of their interests. If the Mactavish Protocols are adopted even in part then insurance buyers are likely to stand a better prospect of getting claims paid when they need it most - at the critical time of a major loss.”

“Mactavish’s research is thorough and convincing, and it lifts the lid on a potential crisis looming in the UK commercial insurance market. Airmic has long argued that the current legal framework for commercial insurance contracts is unsustainable as it requires buyers to anticipate what the insurer may regard as ‘material’ information. Any alleged breach of this rule, even if innocent and unrelated to a particular claim, can lead to an insurer avoiding a policy on grounds of non-disclosure. This research illustrates just how dangerous the situation can be. Mactavish’s proposed remedies are credible and well argued. They align with Airmic’s own work to produce a best practice guide and, with Herbert Smith, to create a remedial clause that provides greater clarity for both parties.”

“As the broker for the former Pilkington Group, a large international client in the heavy industry field, it was clear that we had been driving the same competitive process with the insurance markets each year, based on the accepted practices of market submissions and broking processes and expertise. However, we wanted to give our client more - to give them a competitive edge and move the insurance markets to a new level in their underwriting views and to create greater competition for the benefit of the client.

We researched the Mactavish service, and invited the team to review the client. They analysed the client along with meeting with the senior management to understand their business further. They formed an opinion and gave recommendations which the insurer(s) that they worked with used in their underwriting models. This produced a marked improvement in both the cost and terms provided and drove significant value for the client across their portfolio of insurance.

The client was delighted because they were sure that they were now being underwritten on the best professional basis and, as the broker, we had presided over and facilitated the process to unlock that value.

The broker’s role is to get the best terms available for the client. Without the Mactavish process it is difficult to see how this can be achieved.”

“We undertook a comprehensive review of our key PDBI policy with our brokers, Marsh. Mactavish complemented this review by bringing us into contact with Allianz, who had not previously featured on the programme, and Zurich, who held just an excess line. Mactavish helped us to communicate our strategy and investment in risk management, and demonstrate that the risk had improved materially since the last review. As a result, Allianz provided a sizeable line, Zurich increased their commitment substantially and we were able to achieve significant premium savings and improvements to the policy as a result.”

“As an Insurance Broker dealing with large UK and multinational risk, we found that working with Mactavish meant we were able to add an extra dimension to our clients risk management and insurance programme. [Mactavish's] ability to translate financial data into meaningful information for Insurers assisted us in leveraging both price and cover. Our clients found their involvement assisted them in focusing upon and analysing their insurable and uninsurable risks.”

“The Mactavish process delivered a depth of insight that had not previously been achieved into the underwriters’ view of and approach to our risk, exceeding our expectations in terms of both quality and approach. Mactavish really proved able to elicit and consume vast amounts of information and boil it down appropriately, harnessing important messages and creating hugely valuable output not only to feed systematically into the insurance market, but also developing our own knowledge of risk across the business. This framework may very well be useful internally for senior management and Board level risk evaluations, and creates a logical starting point for portraying the hazard risks facing the company.”