The Confidential Review carried out by Confidential Solutions is a review process designed to secure quality insurance cover at a price below market rate.

It does this by taking a strong contrarian stance to the traditional review process used by UK businesses

In order to achieve this, a completely different process must be followed. This requires alternative infrastructure and a vastly different style of working relationships with key players in the insurance market.

For more details about The Confidential Review, please visit our homepage.

All we ask is that you keep this first meeting a secret, at least until the meeting has been completed.

If after our initial meeting you want to tell everybody, then no problem!

Of course if you want to proceed with The Confidential Review process, then you will need to keep quiet a little longer.

We appreciate that under normal circumstances, knowing that they have competition may prompt a business to offer a better deal. And that you feel it would be rude not to give your current broker the heads up so that they can do so.

The insurance market though simply does not work like other markets in the UK.

Once the holding broker is aware that their client is speaking to alternative brokers, they will usually move to immediately consider their defensive position. This will involve reviewing their existing insurer agency database and sending the enquiry to all of the alternative insurers on their books.

This tender process could involve as many as 20-30 alternative insurance providers.

The numbers involved mean any single one of these 20-30 insurers is very unlikely to win the business. And they know this.

Because of this, it is our belief that they will not put in as much effort to securing you the best price.

And if they decide to quote at all, the quote is likely to be far from the best price that would be possible with a little more work.

Whatever their decision, any other broker who may have been able to secure a better deal with that insurer, will now no longer be able to do so due to the logging protocol.

At Confidential Solutions, we ONLY do Confidential Reviews. Nothing Else. Ever.

Everything in our business model and infrastructure is set up to support the review, which is critical to getting the best results for our clients.

For this reason it is very difficult for our competitors to replicate a truly Confidential Review, and its subsequent results.

So even if you believe you have tried a similar approach before, most likely the infrastructure was not in place to get you the best result.

In a typical commercial insurance tender process, you would select 2 or 3 brokers in addition to your existing broker and expect each of them to come back with a fair price.

Hoping to get a better price than the others, each broker will approach as many insurers as they can. It’s not uncommon for more than 30 insurers to be involved.

The person who makes the decision on behalf of the insurance company as to whether or not to quote on your business, and what price to give, is called an underwriter.

As unknowns carry greater risk, an underwriter can usually put forward a better price when they have a better understanding of you and your business. This can take time.

If an underwriter discerns that there is a lot of competition with other insurers for the business, then she may be more likely to decide against investing any more time on your business. As a result, you may miss out on a better deal.

Also and as you would expect, in some cases the brokers will go to the same insurer. When this happens, whoever gets there first will dictate the price given to all brokers due to the logging protocol.

In order to avoid this problem, some brokers may ask you to sign a letter of exclusivity for them to review with a particular insurer. The insurer will then ignore all other brokers, and work with that one broker only. This is effective, but does little to eliminate the problem of there being too many insurers involved.

Involving multiple insurers in a review is, in our opinion, likely to lead to underwriters losing interest in winning your business because they do not believe that they have a real chance to do so.

It cannot be stated as fact, but it is our fundamental belief (and one critical to The Confidential Review process) that hundreds of opportunities are lost each month because underwriters ‘lose interest’ in providing a quotation.

The Confidential Review guarantees the underwriter’s interest in your business.

Because of the Logging Protocol you will only ever get a quote as good as the first quote offered. If the first broker to approach the insurer is not best placed, or does not put their full effort into negotiations (most likely because they are focusing on another insurer), then you will be stuck with this first ‘mediocre’ price.

There are many factors that may influence an insurer’s decision to quote for your business.

These include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

Are you ‘target’ business for them?

Do they do much business with your broker?

What is your broker’s quote-to-sale conversion rate like? (Does your broker have a history of winning business?)

What are the insurer’s expected chances of winning? Who are they competing with?

Is there a target premium? And is it achievable?

In Insurance, unknowns carry a premium.

If there are factors that the underwriter is unsure about, and they don’t have the time (or don’t believe that it’s worth it) to uncover more detail, then they will give you closer to a ‘boiler plate’ price. Or simply decline to quote entirely.

It cannot be stated as fact, but it is our fundamental belief (and one critical to The Confidential Review process) that hundreds of opportunities are lost each month because underwriters ‘lose interest’ in providing a quotation.

When an Insurance Company is approached by a broker for a quotation in respect of either an existing client or a prospect, they will ‘log’ this interest on their own internal intranet.

This will check the company name and postcode to see whether another enquiry has already been received within the office or any other office across the UK.

Critically, if they have already received the enquiry elsewhere, they must follow suit and provide an identical response – be that an actual price or decision not to quote.

Yes. Very. Your contract of Insurance is with your insurer(s), not your broker. All you have to do is sign a document that we will use to notify your insurance company, and we will take care of the rest.

If we both believe that it is in your best interest, then we can step in to help you manage your insurance policies at any time in the year. It doesn’t need to be at renewal.

At any time. If we both believe that it is in your best interest, then we can step in to help you manage your insurance policies immediately. We do not need to wait until renewal.

Similarly, you are not bound to us should you want to leave.

In the event of a claim please contact your account manager immediately, either on their personal line, or via the office at 0844 967 0703.

“We suffered a fire in our factory and contacted our Account Handler out of hours to notify them of an incident.

Confidential Solutions Ltd visited our premises the next working day to collate information regarding the loss. They immediately appointed a loss assessor to assist with the claim and they then attended a further meeting a couple of days later with the loss assessor and insurer’s loss adjuster to ensure the claim was dealt with without any delays

The claim appeared complicated as 3 different insurers were insuring different aspects of the loss, but Confidential Solutions acted professionally and efficient throughout and they agreed settlement with all insurers very quickly.

A subsequent claim was handled in the same way and we are very happy with their claims service.

 

Stephen Bull

Finance Director, BARTH-HAAS GROUP

Absolutely.

You will be assigned an account manager for your day-to-day queries.

All Account Managers are based in our London office.

We are happy to schedule up to quarterly reviews throughout the year.

We also suggest meeting to discuss your renewal at least 8-12 weeks before expiry.

Should you need or want to meet on other occasions as well this can of course be arranged.

Not surprisingly we use a very similar process to The Confidential Review.

First we will agree with you an ‘objective price’ for the cover you require, based on our current market intelligence. Then we will negotiate with the current insurer and look to come to an agreement.

If we cannot reach an agreement with the current insurers on objective pricing then we will selectively remarket to obtain the pricing objectives.

We will not carry out a ‘beauty parade’ of all of the insurers that could possibly be approached.

Experience tells us that insurers take the enquiry more seriously if they feel there is a genuine interest and intention from the holding brokers to change insurers at renewal should the objective pricing be achieved by an alternative carrier. This approach would not be believable by insurers if some 20-30 alternative markets were involved.

Renewal terms are always presented to you well in advance of renewal.

This gives you enough time to review all your options.

We aim to have matters concluded at least 4 weeks prior to expiry.

FOR NEW BUSINESS AND RENEWAL INVITATIONS

The Insurance Act 2015 contains new measures which we need to bring to your attention as a Business Insured (i.e. an insured buying insurance wholly or mainly for purpose related to their business).

You have a duty to disclose every material circumstance you know or ought to know, after reasonable search. This applies before the cover is placed, when renewed and if altered at any time during duration of the Policy. A circumstance is material if it would influence an Insurer’s decision whether to accept the risk, including its terms and pricing.

If you are in any doubt whether a circumstance is material to the risk, it should be disclosed, as failure to disclose may entitle your Insurer to either void the Policy from inception or impose different terms.  Any claims made would either not be paid or may be reduced in value.

Where there are Warranties, Conditions Precedent or any onerous conditions applicable to your insurance policy, failure to meet such conditions could invalidate the cover (and hence any claims would be paid), or suspend cover until such warranty etc, is remedied (and any claims during the suspension period may not be paid).

If you wish to make a formal complaint about our service we have a formal complaints procedure. In the first instance you should write, phone, fax or send an e-mail to Kevin Carrabine, Managing Director at 145/146 Leadenhall Street, London EC3V 4QT, telephone number 0844 967 0703 ; fax number 0844 967 0704 ; e-mail kc [at] confidentialsolutions.com.

We will acknowledge your complaint in writing and tell you how we will handle it.

If your insurance is underwritten at Lloyd’s and you are not satisfied with the outcome and wish to take the matter further, you can do so at any time by referring the matter to:-

Lloyd’s Complaints Dept, Lloyd’s Market Services, One Lime Street, London, EC3M 7HA

Tel +44 (0)20 7327 5693

Email: complaints@lloyds.com

If your complaint is not settled after at least 8 weeks, then you may be entitled to contact the Financial Ombudsman service. Information on how to do this can be found on their website: http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

Their contact details are: Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, Harbour Exchange Square, London, E14 9SR or via www.fos.org.uk or Tel: 0845 080 1800

A copy of the complaints procedure is available on request.