Risk Management: Explain That to Your Child

I envy anyone who can explain to their children what it is they do for a living. One of the biggest elements of risk management is managing the insurance policies and programs. Try explaining that to anyone who is not intimately involved in the insurance industry, much less your children, is nearly impossible to explain without lengthy explanations of the variety of policies, what is a covered peril, how an exception to an exclusion is actually a very good thing, the distinctions between the various additional insured endorsements, etc.. If you are like my family, you are probably a little drowsy after just that last sentence.

However, a fully-reviewed insurance program is a crucial component for a business to remain successful. Insurance is a readily available tool to protect against large losses that may occur from an unplanned occurrence. While reviewing the insurance program, we review not only what coverages Faith Technologies or what the industry have identified as necessary, we perform internal reviews in order to analyze potential risks and how best to counter them. These measures often include improving procedures, training, and sometimes additional insurance or altering the scope or extent of the coverages.

Faith Technologies has worked hard to develop a culture in which its employees have consistently shown themselves to be well-trained, efficient, innovative, and an adherence to safe work practices. Our award-winning safety department constantly reviews and improves its safety programs. While no one wants to incur a loss; however, statistically speaking, losses will occur in varying sizes and severity and insurance provides the financial means by which to pay for the loss. The safe work environment that Faith Technologies requires, coupled with our internal reviews, has allowed us to maintain a strong relationship with our insurance carriers, which we believe will continue to keep insurance premiums in check over the next years.

People joke how an insurance carrier will go to extraordinary lengths to deny coverage or limit its payments on a claim. While there is an element of truth to this (and many amazing stories), insurance carriers provide very lengthy insurance policies attempting to provide detail as to when coverage applies and when it does not. Remember, no one talks about all of the claims that are routinely accepted and paid out. You only hear about the very few, but extraordinary cases in which coverage was denied.

Most companies, including Faith Technologies, have insurance coverage through multiple types of policies that provide a variety of coverages for the business and the work that we perform. A great deal of time is spent, both internally and with our insurance broker, in reviewing the insurance policy language and how that language might apply to all of the activities of the business. In reality, it is remarkable how many things Faith Technologies does in which the insurance will actually provide coverage. Our risk department spends time confirming its coverages exceed industry standards and is intended not only to support Faith Technologies, as a company, but also to show our customers that every department within the company, including risk, will provide the services and end product they anticipate.

The risk department identifies different risks unique to Faith Technologies and the industry, and assists with the creation of policies to address those risks, including the use of insurance coverages. By doing so, we are able to establish an important example for our customers of the value which Faith brings to every project it works on. My kids will understand that.