10 minute read
Having the right insurance broker on your team
TAKING A CONSULTATIVE APPROACH TO INSURANCE
Having the right insurance broker on your team can make all the difference. Sam Sofi, managing director, and Pieter Versluis general manager, Trans-West Insurance Brokers, share with Cranes and Lifting how to run such a brokerage.
FOR TRANS-WEST INSURANCE BROKERS,
the most important aspect of the business is the experience they have in their team.
“When you’ve been in the insurance business for over 44 years, we would like to think we have a reasonable amount of experience to comment about the crane and lifting industry. Most of our employees have been with the business long term and this experience leads to a stable organisation.
“Of our team of 30 plus we have employees who have been with the organisation for 10 years, 15 years and a number who have been with us for over 20 years. Experience counts in this industry,” Sofi said.
Pieter Versluis goes on to discuss his view about what a crane hire business should be looking for in an insurance broker.
“The importance of having the right insurance broker on your team cannot be underestimated. An insurance broker has to have a clear understanding of the clients’ business and how they think. I believe too many brokers want to insure the crane and insure the work done, but they don’t address the greater business issues.
“We take a consultative approach with our clients. We don’t take a fixed set of questions and operate with a tick and flick approach. ‘Fill out this form and we’ll be able to give you a quote or provide us with this information and we can assist you” he said.
“We visit the yards of our clients, we talk to their management team, and we talk to their operators, riggers, dogmen and other staff about what they do in the business. The only way we can be of assistance to any client is to have a clear understanding of how they run their business. It is not our job to tell them how to run their business, but it is our job to respond to how they run their business.
“When we have gathered information about the business, our team can then examine the risks which may occur and seek to insure them and to establish a risk management plan. There is plenty of regulation around mobile plant and construction equipment including cranes and it is really a case of identifying the risk and then putting a suitable framework in place,” said Versluis.
“In our experience, crane hire businesses often under value the risk they face and undervalue the cost of a replacement crane, if something goes wrong. Cranes are complex pieces of equipment, and take a long time to repair or replace, depending on the severity of the incident.
More often than not cranes will have lease costs attached to them and many crane hire companies fail to see how or why they should insure against this. If a crane is damaged in a significant incident, it can be off the road for six
Clients don’t always fully explain the nature of the work they conduct. To help provide the right insurance cover, Trans-West works hard to ascertain a clear understanding of their client’s operations.
months or more. If you have lease repayments over this period and you are not generating income from the crane, this can turn out to be a very costly oversight, says Versluis.
“Clients don’t always fully explain the nature of the work they conduct. To help provide the right insurance cover, we need to have a clear understanding of their operation. We talk to the office and operational staff about the types of calls they receive, we need to understand the potential sites the client is going to and where possible we visit these sites to see how the operators work,” he said.
The team at Trans-West views itself as an integral partner with crane organisations added the Managing Director Sam Sofi.
“Partnering is very much what we discuss with clients. We want to partner their business and be a regular part of their internal meetings and play a role in their future planning. With this understanding, we are clear on what the customer is planning and invoke conversations around a particular risk.
“We talk about the risk in terms of the policy wording and the schedules. Instead of our client conducting an
internal meeting and coming to us with a series of questions we like to take part in their planning meetings. It makes us a much better advocate.
“This works particularly well with clients involved in contracting. Often projects have been in the planning for months and we want to play a role in this planning. We then become a partner in terms of reviewing documentation, planning and contracts. We are not a legal office, but we do offer a service where we will review the contracts a customer is looking at signing, particularly in the context of insurance and either send this to the legal contacts we have, or liaise with the clients’ legal people,” said Sofi.
“In one instance the contract put to our client would have had major ramifications where by the insurer may have been able to deny liability. We negotiated a favourable outcome for both the crane company and the insurer so that our client was able to fulfil their contract.
“This is a major issue with many crane businesses. They are keen to secure the work and often don’t read the fine print and don’t understand the liabilities added Sofi. This can be particularly relevant in on hook cover.
“As we know, there is an increasing tendency for principal contractors to offset as much of the risk to other contractors. In conjunction with our clients, we have to be aware of this and examine how we can cover these risks, pass on the risk or refuse to take the risk on.
“The customer’s predominant concern is to get the crane out of the yard, get it to a site and have it working. Our job is to ensure they do this with the safest methodologies for their staff, for the people who will be exposed to the workings of the crane, the crane and the crane hire business,” he said.
Versluis then added that TransWest is a Sydney based brokerage with clients right across the country. We have recently expanded to our office in Toronto and this extends our reach to country NSW.
“We can offer a service nationally but our client base is predominantly on the east coast. We are happy to work with any potential customer within the scope of works I have been discussing. We utilise today’s technology including Zoom, FaceTime and Skype as we are unable to travel due to the ongoing lock downs. We are a people business, and whilst it would be our absolute preference to meet clients face to face, given there are continued disruptions, like most businesses, we will have to conduct more of our work on a virtual basis,” he said.
Sofi explains how Trans-West responds to a customer who is involved in an incident.
“We always say to our clients if they are involved in an incident, following the calls they make to the regulatory authorities, the next call is to us. We will do whatever is necessary to get to the site. We do this because we are the clients advocate, we know the wordings, we know the schedules and quite often we have more up to date information than the insurer.
“That’s because the client will be in touch with us about their schedule and what their requirements are and we will then be in touch with the insurer. I am fond of saying our records will be more up to date than the insurer’s records. It is important that we are there for our client, protecting our client and ensuring their position is protected,” he said.
“If it is a significant incident the insurer will be sending an assessor as soon as they can, but I know we respond much faster and earlier in the process. We are also in the fortunate position as I am a qualified pilot and have been able to attend some major incidents by helicopter,” said Sofi.
“We have a good relationship with the major crane and mobile equipment insurers. We work well with them on the basis that one insurer is not going to suit every crane hire business and not every crane hire business will like one insurer. It is important to have relationships with insurers in both the material damage space and the liability space. This enables us to design bespoke policy cover for our clients based on our understanding of their business,” he said.
The regulatory requirements for crane hire businesses are becoming increasingly onerous. Crane hire businesses need to be aware of the changes to regulations, they need to be aware of the dangers of taking on work when they don’t have a clear understanding of the work says Sofi.
“For example, a business sends a crane to a hospital and the business owner is not conscience of what they are actually lifting and doesn’t know the value of the piece of equipment they are lifting. Crane businesses need to get more information for the work they are doing. This enables brokers and the insurance industry to work with them to identify the risk and to negotiate the appropriate premiums, otherwise, we will see premiums continue to climb. The more information we can gather the better so we can advise the insurer about the risks. The more information we can tell insurers the better,” he said.
“With all the uncertainty around COVID and lock downs many of the cranes in Sydney and New South Wales are either standing still or working to a limited extent. Clients are asking about lay-up cover. I’m fielding calls every day and they are asking us to negotiate this with the insurer. This is further evidence of how we work with the client and the insurer to ensure the best cover is in place.
“We will be happy to talk to a crane hire business about their current policy to make sure they have the right levels of cover for the right areas of their business. We are an experienced group of people, and we want the best for our clients. We are always happy to have the conversation,” said Sofi.
CONTINUED ENDEAVOUR WITH QUALITY USED CRANES
The Baden Davis Crane Connection recently delivered a Liebherr LTM 1040-2.1 to Endeavour Cranes. Owner Nick Slaviero explains more about his business and the reasons behind the purchase.
SLAVIERO IS A CARPENTER BY TRADE
and has been running his own carpentry business since 2010. In 2016 he decided it would be a good idea to incorporate a crane into his business to help become self-reliant and offer carpentry and crane hire services to the building companies he contracted to. He takes up the story.’
“Back in 2014, I was looking to buy a slew crane. I could see the project home industry was moving away from traditional timber frame construction which was my passion, and into hybrid and steel frames. With this move went my passion for building. In the meantime, I had always seen the potential for a crane business, and it was really a matter of timing. By 2016 the timing was right and I gradually stepped away from carpentry and into cranes.
“I had always wanted a slew crane because we had been hiring them for the construction work. I looked at several cranes and then the option of a Franna came up. I could see the benefits of its versatility and lifting capacities and decided this would be a good crane to start out with. It was the right crane at the right price, and it suited my requirements to a tee, so I took it,” he said.
Slaviero purchased a AT15-3 the most compact pick and carry in the
