b'Insurance NotesA RoofingContractorsGuide to Controlling Liability Insurance CostsA Simon Says article By Simon J. Fenn, CIP, Chairman,Fenn & Fenn Insurance Practice Inc.A s many of you know from firsthand experience, your insurance became morecases became generally less disciplined with risk management and loss prevention; expensive recently. You are not alone! Without delving too deeply into why, Ieven with poor claims experience the insurance purchaser could shop and change summarize here some of the contributing factors for both insurers and insureds: insurers for a cheaper annual premium. 1.Competitionbetweeninsurersformarketplacesharebetween2005and20177. The value proposition of brokers and insurers became less about advice and cover-was fierce.age quality and more about providing a cheap product.2.This competition drove premiums downwards to a point that gross claims costsThis has happened before in historic insurance market cycle changes; I have experi-exceeded gross written premium, delivering underwriting losses to insurers. enced four hardening insurance marketplaces since I began my career in 1979; unfor-3.The poor losses to premium ratio became unsustainable.4. Even insurers return on investments was insufficient to offset underwriting losses.tunately it will repeat itself. 5. Natural catastrophes peaked in 2017 resulting in the most expensive claims year inThe main purpose of this paper is to deliver some hints you may find useful in keepinginsurance history, driving insurers losses even higher.your general liability insurance costs under control in this hardening insurance market. 6.With cheap insurance available for 15 years (despite everything elseexcept per- I will address other types of insurance in a separate article at a later date. The following haps electronicsbecoming more expensive), the insurance purchaser in manysuggestions are drawn from my own experience and I hope you find them useful: 3 RDPARTY TESTINGThermographyLeak DetectionUplift / Pullout TestingMaterials TestingShop Drawing EngineeringOTTAWAKINGSTONLONDON MONTRALmail@fsaeng.comwww.fsaeng.com16ONTARIO ROOFING NEWSISSUE 2 2019 THE ONLY SOURCE FOR PROFESSIONAL ICI ROOFING CONTRACTORS IN ONTARIO ORN'