Organizations are constantly searching for opportunities to reduce insurance costs. Companies need to view their role in the insurer/insured relationship differently. The insurance company isn’t selling you insurance; you are selling them your risk. Don't let them assume what you do and what your risks are.

By providing detailed risk management plans, including your organization's ability to produce and implement trend analysis reporting, your organization is promoting its proactive and risk-conscious environment. When history is unknown, or the internal approach is more reactive than proactive, insurers will typically err on the side of caution. This frequently translates into higher premiums and more restrictive coverages and limits.

Follow these tips below to get the best insurance for your organization:

7 Tips to Control Your Organization's Insurance Costs

1. Get organized

Everyone hates insurance renewal time because you have to fill out forms, collect data and go through the whole agonizing process every year.

This is the computer age; take advantage of it.

Implementing a claims and risk management system is the best way to track, manage, and report on data. Renewals become effortless as all updated data can be exported and shared in minutes. Inside a claims and risk management system, you can scan and keep copies of all insurance renewal applications that you fill out.

Ask your broker if they have electronic forms that you can edit, so you can save and update them annually. Every risk management policy, safety policy, contract wording, sales agreement, marketing materials, and anything else that show your risk management process should be in this system.

By keeping this information up to date, renewals become much easier, less time consuming, and more effective.

2. Risk improvement

Constantly work on improving your risk and documenting your efforts. Saying to an insurance company “here is our risk management plan and here are all the things we implemented to improve our risk” is a lot better than saying “we winged it."

Every successful organization manages risk whether they know it or not. You are already doing a lot right now to mitigate your risks. Take it a step further by implementing a claims and risk management system. This way, your organization can easily report on trends, uncover causes of past occurrences, and show what's being done to mitigate the frequency and severity of future losses.

Presenting this data demonstrates you're actively managing risk and have a plan in place to minimize future occurrences. This process makes your organization more attractive to insurance markets and dramatically affects the cost of insurance premiums. 

3. Take it seriously

How much does your organization spend a year on insurance? How much time do you spend on preparing your insurance application and renewal?

Now consider how much time you would spend going after a customer that paid you annually as much as your insurance costs.

The amount of time should be the same, but you more than likely spend a fraction of the time on insurance as you do on the sale.

4. Start early

Contact your insurance broker 90 days before your renewal date and start working with them to get your application and renewal documents together. Ask your broker what their renewal strategy will be for this renewal.

5. Use your broker

There are good ones and bad: don’t settle for substandard service.

It is a very competitive business, so if your broker doesn’t want to make an effort there are a hundred lined up behind them that will. Make sure your broker has the experience and access to plenty of insurance markets that write your type of insurance coverages.

6. Get your hands dirty

No matter how good your broker is, they will never know your business as well as you do. That being the case, how can they be expected to communicate your organization’s risk effectively to the insurance market? Work together with them. Your broker can add a lot of guidance and value, but you are your organization’s best salesperson!

7. Make it personal

Write an executive summary for the insurance companies and give it to your broker to include with the marketing submission they prepare. The letter should give an overview of your risk, why you are a good risk compared to others, and the highlights of the things you do to mitigate the risks in your business. It will let the insurers know you care about your risk and leave them with a positive impression of your organization.

Remember, people make these decisions, not computers, so the impression you make is important. 

ClearRisk's Claims, Incident, and Risk Management software helps you implement trend analysis and data tracking that will allow you to save a large portion of your claims costs. Want more information? Learn more below. 

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