The Opportunity
A glazing contractor had been with the same broker since the company was founded. An initial conversation years earlier had gone cold as the client got busy running the business, and the relationship sat dormant until a new advisor picked up the relationship and reconnected.
The timing turned out to be ideal. The contractor was in the middle of real service frustrations with their incumbent broker, most notably, certificates of insurance, a routine but critical need in construction, were taking about a week to turn around. That slow service was what initially prompted the client to start talking to other options.
A closer look at the existing program during diligence revealed the service issues were only part of the problem. The account had wrong class codes on multiple lines, gaps in coverage, and was placed with a carrier that wasn't well matched to the contractor's actual risk. On top of that, as the contractor began taking on bonded work, they had no surety department to support it.
The Strategy
With service issues as the entry point, the approach focused on proving out the value of a full program review rather than simply competing on price:
- Conducted full diligence on the existing program, line by line, to identify exactly where coverage was mispriced, misclassified, or gapped.
- Clearly showed the contractor how much they were overpaying due to incorrect class codes and carrier mismatch, and precisely how those savings would be captured.
- Secured the Broker of Record letter and marketed the account to place it correctly, with pricing that ultimately landed roughly 20% below competing quotes.
- Rebuilt the program to fix coverage gaps and class code errors across nearly every line, matching the contractor to a carrier appropriate for their risk.
- Brought in a dedicated surety department to support the contractor's growing need for bonded work, a capability their prior broker didn't offer.
- Overhauled certificate of insurance turnaround, a top pain point for a construction client that needs certs quickly and often.
The Results
The diligence findings played out almost exactly as projected, and the contractor moved their program over with full confidence in the numbers:
- Achieved pricing roughly 20% lower than competing quotes, on top of the savings already identified from correcting the mispriced program.
- Corrected wrong class codes and closed coverage gaps across nearly every line of coverage.
- Matched the contractor to a carrier properly suited to their risk, replacing a mismatched placement.
- Cut certificate of insurance turnaround from about a week to roughly 30 minutes, resolving the contractor's top service complaint.
- Added access to a surety department, giving the contractor support for bonded work they didn't previously have.
With pricing, coverage, service, and bonding capacity all addressed at once, the contractor now has a program built to support the business as it grows, and the relationship is expected to be a long-term one.
