Insurance Brokers Research Articles

Handling insurance claims

On 26 April 1999, the Government introduced changes in the law which altered the way in which personal injury claims would be handled by your insurance broker or insurance company.

Jockey Injuries in the United States

In the sport of horse racing, the position of the jockey and speed of the horse predispose the jockey to risk of injury. To estimate rates of medically treated injuries among professional jockeys and identify patterns of injury events. Cross-sectional survey from data compiled by an insurance broker. Information on the cause of injury, location on the track, and body part injured was evaluated. Official races at US professional racing facilities (n = 114) from January 1, 1993, through December 31, 1996. A licensed jockey population of approximately 2700 persons. Annual injury incidence rates per 1000 jockey-years, as well as injury type, cause, and location on the track. A total of 6545 injury events occurred during official races between 1993 and 1996 (606 per 1000 jockey-years). Nearly 1 in 5 injuries (18.8%) was to the jockey's head or neck. Other frequent sites included the leg (15.5%), foot/ankle (10.7%), back (10.7%), arm/hand (11.0%), and shoulder (9.6%). The most frequent location where injuries occurred was entering, within, or leaving the starting gate (35.1%), including 29.5% of head injuries, 39.8% of arm/hand injuries, and 52.0% of injuries to the leg/foot. Most head injuries resulted from being thrown from the horse (41.8%) or struck by the horse's head (23.2%). Being thrown from the horse was the cause of 55.1% of back and 49.6% of chest injuries. Our data suggest that jockeys have a high injury rate. Efforts are needed to reduce the number of potential injury events on the track and to improve protective equipment so events do not lead to injury.

Who helps employers design their health insurance benefits?

Presents national estimates of the number and characteristics of employers who depend on the help of insurance agents and brokers, third-party administrators, and professional benefit consultants in designing their health insurance benefits.

Property-Liability Insurer Financial Strength Ratings: Differences across Rating Agencies

Regulators, investors, consumers, and insurance brokers use insurer financial strength ratings to evaluate the insolvency risk of insurers. This article investigates the factors influencing the decision to obtain a rating or multiple ratings, the determinants of ratings for the three major insurer rating agencies, and reasons for differences in ratings across agencies. This study indicates that insurers obtain ratings to reduce ex ante uncertainty about insolvency risk. It also provides evidence that specific rating determinants and their weights differ across agencies. Evidence of sample selection bias is found only in relation to Best's ratings.

Risk management in insurance

This paper outlines the aspects of risk management that are applicable to insuring and insurance broking operations. Insurance is a risk‐accepting, rather than risk‐averse activity; thus its own risk management has to concentrate on the proper appreciation of changing patterns of risk in an economically developing world of changing climate and on the dangers inherent in the aggregation of risks in globalised businesses. Simplified ‘commodity’ insurance products may be mis‐sold by inept or unethical agents or staff, with a disastrous effect on profit and/or corporate reputation. However large concentrations of capital in insuring organisations may become, and however fully global the major broking houses become, in the end the basic insurance principle of good faith and the recognition of moral hazard will determine the success of well‐managed (and risk managed) insurance business structures.

UK auditor liability: an insurable risk?

To answer the question, two approaches have been adopted: a series of interviews with insurance brokers and a Big Six audit partner, and an economic analysis of the factors limiting insurability as it applies to the audit services market. The results of the interviews suggest that there is a two-tier market, with the larger audit firms receiving only partial insurance cover for particular bands of risk and a second tier for which the audit firms can receive effectively full insurance. There are four main problems for insurers dealing with auditor liability: (i) constructing probabilities for particular levels of damages, because of the relative infrequency of occurrence of major payouts for auditor liability; (ii) the impact of uncontrollable moral hazard, in particular effort discouragement and distribution distortion hazards; (iii) unverifiable adverse selection; and (iv) assessing the size of the damages that might be awarded, because of unpredictable changes within the legal framework.

UK Auditor Liability: An Insurable Risk?

To answer the question, two approaches have been adopted: a series of interviews with insurance brokers and a Big Six audit partner, and an economic analysis of the factors limiting insurability as it applies to the audit services market. The results of the interviews suggest that there is a two‐tier market, with the larger audit firms receiving only partial insurance cover for particular bands of risk and a second tier for which the audit firms can receive effectively full insurance. There are four main problems for insurers dealing with auditor liability: (i) constructing probabilities for particular levels of damages, because of the relative infrequency of occurrence of major payouts for auditor liability; (ii) the impact of uncontrollable moral hazard, in particular effort discouragement and distribution distortion hazards; (iii) unverifiable adverse selection; and (iv) assessing the size of the damages that might be awarded, because of unpredictable changes within the legal framework.

Health benefits for the terminally ill: reality and perception.

This paper examines the availability and scope of hospice benefits as well as employers' attitudes and knowledge about care for the terminally ill. Data are drawn from a national random sample of 1,502 employers with 200 or more workers and from focus groups with employee benefits managers and their insurance advisers, brokers, and consultants. Major findings are that 83 percent of employers offer explicit hospice benefits, with most other firms covering hospice through high-cost case management. Most employers support the concept of hospice care because they believe that it reduces medical expenses.

Capitation's cheap trick: Treat only healthy young adults

The insurance industry will tell you capitation is a cost-effective way to control rising medical costs. What it will not tell you is it is reverse insurance. Typically, an insurance company accepts the risks relating to protecting your life, your house, your car, your health or whatever — for a fee. It makes money by spreading that risk over huge populations. Sometimes it even will spread the risk further by sharing the risks with other insurance companies through an insurance broker like Lloyds of London.

Insurance broker as an element of the insurance product

Insurance broker as an element of the insurance product

IT and changing professional identity: Micro-studies and macro-theory

This article explores linkages between the use of information technology and changes in the self-identity of professional groups, in terms of how they see and describe themselves in relation to their work and that of others. Three micro-level studies are described, involving the work of loan managers in a particular bank, insurance brokers in the London Insurance Market, and professional salespeople in a pharmaceutical company. Results from the case studies are analyzed using concepts from the macro-level social theory of the sociologist Anthony Giddens. It is argued that such theory can help to us to generalize the results from micro-level studies and, conversely, that micro-studies of IT and social transformation are needed to add in the IT dimension to macro-level theories. The article offers a modest starting point for the investigation of IT and social transformation across multiple levels of analysis. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Strategies for ensuring compliance with the AB1 code of practice for the selling of general insurance

The ABI code of practice for the selling of general insurance was first introduced in 1981 and has been refined over the years to meet the needs of consumers. It seeks to reflect the controls exercised over insurance brokers by virtue of the Insurance Brokers (Registration) Act 1977 and related regulations. It applies to all non‐registered intermediaries and employees of insurance companies. In 1994 the ABI introduced a number of improvements to address key areas of compliance, awareness and consumer recourse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the selling process involved at the new business, mid‐term adjustment, renewal stages of a general personal lines policy cycle and to propose strategies to ensure compliance with the ABI code. It considers options for monitoring and the importance of enforcement.

Management strategy in UK insurance broking

Notes that the insurance broking industry is unattractive and subject to long‐term change. Cites factors contributing to this such as industry saturation, low entry barriers and low product differentiation. Notes expected responses to such conditions, including those from the large, medium‐sized and provincial or high street brokers. Suggests that the latter are likely to decrease in number, faced with the increasing efficiency of direct writers and attempts by medium‐sized brokers to enter their market to offset losses in the upper levels of the market. Notes that this pattern is reflected in other areas of financial services.

REGINA V SECURITIES AND INVESTMENTS BOARD AND ANOTHER EX PARTE INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL ADVISERS ASSOCIATION AND LIBM LTD

The origins of this litigation lay in the over‐selling of personal pensions that took place after April 1988. On 25th October, 1994, the Securities and Investments Board (SIB) published a long‐awaited statement, which it described as ‘guidance’. This statement was adopted on 5th November, 1994, by the Insurance Brokers Registration Council (IBRC), a recognised self‐regulating organisation (SRO) for the purposes of the Financial Services Act 1986.

REGINA v INVESTORS COMPENSATION BOARD EX PARTE BOWDEN & ANOTHER

A number of investors, among them the appellants in this case, took out ‘home income plans’ (HIPs) promoted by insurance brokers who were FIMBRA members. Mortgage loans were raised under these plans on the security of the appellants' homes and the capital so obtained was invested in income producing equity linked single premium investment bonds. The values of property and equities then fell, interest rates rose sharply and the appellants' sustained serious losses in that they were left with mortgage liabilities they could not meet.

Factors of performance of insurance brokers related to the developments in the national and international insurance markets.: Farny D., Cologne, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Versicherungswirtschaft, Vol. 82, 1993, pp. 339–361.

Factors of performance of insurance brokers related to the developments in the national and international insurance markets.: Farny D., Cologne, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Versicherungswirtschaft, Vol. 82, 1993, pp. 339–361.

Insurance--a dental viewpoint. Part I: An introduction.

Current changes in the market are likely to alter our perception of insurance companies and brokers. Brokers will soon be required to disclose the amounts of commission earned and this may drive individuals back into the arms of the salesmen from individual companies. This series of articles sets out to show the options that are available to the dentist and to show how to use the range of expert advice available.

Jackson and Powell on Professional Negligence (Third Edition). General editors R. M. Jackson QC and J. L. Powell QC

Jackson and Powell on Professional Negligence (3rd ed.) Gen. ed. R. M. Jackson QC and J. L. Powell QC Published by Sweet & Maxwell ( Common Law Library ) London 1992. Ixxx + 716 pp Hardback £125.00. The third edition of Jackson and Powell on Professional Negligence is an essential reference work for all involved in arbitrations in which professional liability issues may arise. Written by a team of barristers practising in the area, the book provides a comprehensive guide to the English case law. The organisation of the text into a General Chapter followed by seven profession-specific chapters covering construction professionals, surveyors, solicitors, barristers, medical practitioners, insurance brokers and accountants, make for ease of use. The case law is explained at length and with clarity. A particular strength of the book lies in …

The insurance broker, 2nd ed.

The insurance broker, 2nd ed.

Developing Executive Competences: Learning to Confront, Confronting to Learn

Suggests that increasing competitiveness in the corporate environment demands new managerial skills which reflect the key values of 1990s employee behaviour – i.e. quality performance in line with the constantly changing requirements of clients and colleagues. Points to the dramatic increase in management training as one way of enhancing managerial creativity and skill, and asks if such training programmes actually work, and if they can help managers to overcome their often unproductive work habits. Describes a successful management development programme aimed primarily at directors within a large, multinational insurance broking firm. Concludes that it is crucial that such training helps managers to adjust to, and deal with, their environment by encouraging them to learn how to learn and to use this capacity to confront performance problems and to work with others to overcome them.