Articles

Drones are an increasingly popular hobby for adults and kids. And it’s all fun and games and cool videos until something glitches, and an out-of-control rack of spinning blades hits someone in the head. Or crashes into a house. The potential for drones to cause injury and property damage raises questions about what types of activity are covered by existing insurance and whether drone hobbyists or...

Today’s hard U.S. commercial property insurance market — one that is the longest and toughest seen during the careers of even the most seasoned industry veterans — is likely here to stay for a while. “This is the hardest property market we’ve seen in 20 years,” said Scott Purviance, chief executive officer of Amwins. “I’ve never seen anything like this hard market,” added Nancy Woode, head of the...

A landlord decides to lease a space in a retail strip center to a sports bar. The landlord’s commercial real estate representative sends the lease to the new prospective tenant to sign — it is a standard industry lease that has the typical insurance clauses like general liability, workers’ compensation, property, etc. — simple enough, right? However, there is one important consideration for landlo...

When it comes to general insurance issues, cannabis-related businesses face the same general liability and property risks faced by other industries, like workplace accidents, damage to property, crop failure and transporting their products to market. However, cannabis businesses require more comprehensive commercial insurance due to the high risks involved in transporting cannabis-related products...

Expertise and relationship-building are especially important when securing insurance coverage for high-net-worth individuals. In the dynamic high-net-worth (HNW) homeowners insurance space, independent agents and brokers can stand out with their advice and guidance. High-value home insurance is designed for high-net-worth individuals with luxury homes and expensive valuables and assets. Unlike tra...

The increasing cost of flooding due to climate change has led to growing concerns that housing markets are mispricing these risks, thus causing a real estate bubble to develop, according to a study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study examined the potential cost of unrealized flood risk in the U.S. real estate market and found that flood zone property prices are overv...

Anyone who has read this column for the past four years, or earlier articles of mine, knows that I am passionate about my disdain for the proliferation of price-focused industry advertising. I believe it creates or fuels the perception in the minds of consumers that insurance is a commodity differentiated solely by price, where coverage is pretty much the same from one policy and insurer to anothe...

Specialization is critical in the cattle business and increased consumer demand for protein is driving new trends, including niche farms that offer direct-to-consumer strategies. In today’s evolving and growing livestock landscape, deep knowledge of market conditions and specialization is key to success, according to Erin Cumings, a senior consultant with Nationwide’s sponsor relation team who has...

For many, the “metaverse” sounds like some obscure sci-fi fantasyland. You may be asking, where is it? How does one get there? Well, if you’re reading this article on a screen, you are already scratching the surface of what could be characterized as the metaverse. That’s right. Generally speaking, the metaverse is just a new way of talking about cyberspace. And you know cyberspace. Think about tha...

Insurance Journal examined industries experiencing changes and a few challenges due to economic forces, tough insurance market conditions, and societal pressure. Here are 10 industry sectors that could see new and emerging risks in 2023 and beyond. Cyber Complexities It may be a long time before cyber risk finds itself off a list of emerging risks. Though firmly established as a well-known concern...

Last month, insurance educator Chris Kendall, CPCU, ARM, et al., posted some results of a survey of 2,000 U.S. homeowners on LinkedIn. Conducted or commissioned by Goosehead Insurance Inc., one of the most revealing statistics was that 65% of policyholders agreed that they “have no idea what my home insurance fully covers.” This tracks with a similar survey conducted by Plymouth Rock Home Assuranc...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a popular topic of year-end prediction articles in recent years. Looking ahead in 2023, I offer a viewpoint that goes beyond the marketing buzz with my forecasts of the value insurers could realize from AI and the potential impacts these AI implementations will have on their customers. Trusting AI This time last year, I made the case for insurers to begin taki...

The national labor shortage is disrupting businesses across the country, and the brewery industry is no exception. There are three million fewer Americans in the labor force today compared to February 2020, According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. For agents and brokers, this presents an opportunity to help brewery clients navigate the labor shortage safely and avoid new risk exposures by helpin...

A convergence of global events has led to the hardest property-catastrophe reinsurance market in a generation and a “complex,” “grueling” and “late” January renewal season, which went down to the wire, according to reports issued by brokers Gallagher and Howden Re. The geopolitical and macroeconomic shocks that occurred during 2022 included the war in Ukraine, fractured energy markets, 40-year hig...

Insurance brokerage USI is forecasting that half of 32 commercial insurance product lines analyzed will experience softer pricing in the first half of 2023—including a predicted “buyer’s market” for directors and officers liability with some caveats. Comparing USI’s forecasts for the first half of 2023 from the firm’s recently published “2023 Commercial P&C Market Outlook” with midyear 2022 foreca...