What’s New: In Brief (October 05, 2009)

Canadian legal expense insurance risks not large enough to qualify for a binding authority can now be placed at Lloyd’s of London by Lloyd’s-approved Canadian brokers.
Endeavour Insurance Services now has a line slip designed for small group legal expense risks that are not large enough to qualify for a binding authority.
“This facilitates the placement of new legal expenses programmes that are produced by Lloyd’s approved Canadian insurance brokers by removing all of the regulatory issues that a new Lloyd’s binding authority requires,” said Victoria Girling, president of CAN-UK Underwriting Services Ltd.
“A new programme generally does not have sufficient volume of premium income to justify setting up a new binding authority and the line slip is therefore a welcome and more suitable facility to place Canadian Legal Expenses business in the London market,” she added.

As companies struggle for growth in the current economic environment, risk managers run the risk of being seen by others in the organization as someone who is frustrating deals, said Peter den Dekker, president of the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA).
Den Dekker was quoted by Lloyd’s as saying that the financial crisis has highlighted the difference between the short-term approach of senior managers and the long-term approach of risk managers.
“Short termism got us into this crisis,” he told Lloyd’s. “That’s why risk managers have to have a big personality and be able to stand up to boards.
“Okay, the risk manager does not bring in new business – but the risk manager clearly facilitates healthy new business.”