Page 18: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (July 2014)

18 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • JULY 2014

INSURANCE

A s a maritime business own- er, your day-to-day focus is on managing and growing your business. Understand- ably, thinking about and understanding the nuances of your insurance coverage is not likely to be among your top pri- orities. However, what if the unthinkable happens and your docks and piers are se- riously damaged?

A review of the damage with your in- surance claim adjuster will likely lead to discussions of “coinsurance percentage,” “coinsurance penalty” and “insured to value.” While these aren’t terms you’ll use very often, it’s important to under- stand how coinsurance works, especially since a misunderstanding can impact how much you receive on an insurance claim versus how much you anticipated receiving.

How Coinsurance Works

If you’ve had any recent discussions with your insurance agent about cover- age for your piers and docks, he or she may have told you to insure them for their full replacement cost if you want to avoid receiving a penalty on any poten- tial claims. A common question among maritime business owners, however, is why they shouldn’t just buy a limit of insurance based on how much damage they anticipate sustaining if something were to happen to their pier or dock.

For example, suppose it would cost $500,000 to replace your entire pier or dock system, but you don’t believe you would ever sustain a complete loss. Why can’t you just buy a policy with, say, a $200,000 limit if that is the most damage you believe you would ever sustain?

Technically, you could, but you would be putting yourself at fi nancial risk.

That’s because, if your policy has a coin- surance clause, you would only be eligi- ble to receive a percentage of the actual loss you incurred.

The two most likely ways that your insurance company will pay a claim settlement are called Replacement Cost

Value and Actual Cash Value. Replace- ment Cost Value represents today’s cost to replace the damaged pier. With Actual

Cash Value policies, the insurance com- pany will factor depreciation (any wear and tear conditions that have occurred over time to make your pier less valu- able) into the amount you receive. When your policy has coinsurance terms, it will specify a percentage of either your

Replacement Cost Value or your Actual

Cash Value that you will be required to purchase.

For example, let’s say you have a pol- icy that has an 80% coinsurance clause and is based on replacement cost. In this case, your insurance limit would need to be at least 80% of the estimated $500,000 total replacement cost. So, the limit you buy would need to be at least $400,000. If you choose to purchase a limit lower than $400,000, you would incur a coinsurance penalty in the event of a covered claim.

If you believed that the most damage you are likely to incur in a single event would not exceed $200,000, you may be tempted to choose a coverage limit of that amount to lower the premium cost.

But under the rules of coinsurance, you cannot simply buy 50% of the required coverage limit at half the cost. While you will pay a smaller annual premium, you will then only qualify to receive just 50% of the coverage.

In other words, if you were to purchase $200,000 of coverage and your dock was then damaged in a storm and it would cost $100,000 to repair the damage, you might assume you would be completely covered. However, since you purchased a limit that is only 50% of the required minimum limit of $400,000, under the rules of the coinsurance penalty you are eligible to receive just 50% of your claim – or $50,000.

Why a Coinsurance Penalty?

So why is there a penalty if you are not “insured to value” and what could it be?

Insurance companies’ rates are based on the need to have enough premium col- lected across all customers to pay the average, expected claims that occur in a typical year, whether from winter storms, small fi res or damage from ves- sels, for example.

Additionally, insurers need to reserve enough funds to pay for the larger, more unusual events that may happen – such as Superstorm Sandy – and be able to meet their claim obligations.

Gaining Deeper Coinsurance Insights

To help you better understand the role coinsurance plays in determining the ap- propriate coverage and rates, here’s an example: • An insurance company has 100 hy- pothetical marine businesses that require insurance on their docks and piers. We will assume the average dock or pier sys- tem has a replacement cost of $500,000.

This equates to a total of approximately $50,000,000 in the value of docks and piers insured. • For the sake of this example, assume that the average claim paid for docks and piers damage is 10 percent to 15 percent of the replacement value, not including larger unusual events. This means the average claim will be approximately $50,000 to $75,000. History has also shown that a certain percentage of these 100 businesses will fi le claims each year. • In order to suffi ciently pay antici- pated claim obligations while remain- ing a strong, solvent insurer, the average annual premium charged to each marine business in this hypothetical example is $7,500, assuming each business will be insured to value. Those with higher val- ues will pay a larger premium, and those with lower values will pay less. Because the insurance company has collected an average of $7,500 for each policy and there are 100 policies being issued, they will have collected $750,000 in premi- ums. That is the amount, in our example, that has been determined to best position the insurance company to meet claim and fi nancial obligations while still re- maining competitive.

But what would happen if there were no coinsurance requirements? A large number of the 100 marine businesses could decide to purchase what is called a “compressed limit,” meaning that they are buying a lower limit based on what they feel their average claim cost may be, instead of purchasing the higher limit required to insure to value. • If a substantial number of these businesses decided to purchase a limit closer to $200,000 then to $400,000, the insurance carrier is now going to collect a much lower overall amount of pre- mium for these 100 businesses, with the total premium collected being closer to $400,000 than $750,000. • Although the insurer would be col- lecting fewer premium dollars, the esti- mated number of claims and the average claims costs are not expected to decline.

As a result, the insurance company wouldn’t be collecting enough in pre- miums to cover the average, anticipated losses that occur each year, much less have suffi cient funds set aside to cover the large events that will inevitably oc- cur from time to time. • As a result, the insurer wouldn’t be properly protecting its marine cus- tomers. Insurance carriers would then need to raise the rates substantially for these smaller “compressed limits” to still bring in the total funds necessary to properly insure their policyholders. In other words, customers would receive a smaller amount of coverage for the same premiums. It is for this reason that coin- surance requirements are necessary.

Insurance carriers want their custom- ers to experience a satisfactory, hassle- free claims process. By working with your marine insurance agent or broker, you can ensure that your piers, docks and other marine properties are insured to value. Doing so will help you avoid unnecessary surprises and protect your business from potential fi nancial pitfalls.

Piers & Docks Insurance

The Cause behind the Clause

BY ALEX KRIPETZ, MANAGING DIRECTOR, TRAVELERS OCEAN MARINE

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