The following is a brief overview of the Competitive Environmental Intelligence you will learn on your CeS path.
In our first coaching session, we will review the various pollution-insurance-coverage options that are available in the market.
This often leads to the question: Why do we have pollution-insurance policies?
I’ll answer that by pointing out that the reason we have workers compensation policies is because the Commercial General Liability – or CGL – policy excludes coverage.
The reason we have Commercial Auto policies is because the CGL policy excludes coverage.
The reason we have Pollution policies is because the CGL policy excludes coverage.
So, we have pollution insurance to fill in coverage gaps created by standard property and casualty policies.
As you have probably guessed already, pollution coverage is a huge part of the market.
In fact, the longest exclusion in the Commercial General Liability policy is the Pollution exclusion. So, it makes sense that a key part of Best Practices in today’s business environment is to make sure businesses have an environmental financial-assurance strategy in place.
Environmental financial assurance is nothing new.
In fact, for decades, our government has required environmental financial assurance.
- Under Federal law, asbestos- and lead-abatement contractors must show evidence of environmental financial assurance by purchasing contractor’s pollution-liability insurance to undertake asbestos- or lead-abatement work.
- Under Federal law, Industrial or hazardous-waste haulers must provide evidence of financial assurance with broadened auto pollution liability coverage before they can move a single load.
- Under Federal law, Owners of regulated underground storage tanks must also show evidence of environmental financial assurance before they can put anything into their tanks.
In recent years, the private business sector has been slow to respond and to require environmental financial assurance in business transactions. But in today’s business environment, it is all about financial assurance and driving this are contracts containing environmental indemnifications.
Attorneys introduced environmental indemnifications in contracts. But business owners and leaders in our industry have learned that, without environmental financial assurance in place, a contract may not be worth the paper on which it is written.
In fact, when you start reviewing contracts, you might be amazed by how many are asking for the wrong pollution and financial assurance coverage.
In our second coaching session, we will consider and strategize about creating a quality submission to leverage your ability to negotiate the broadest environmental coverage at the most competitive premium. Keep in mind, in the Excess and Surplus Lines market, all coverages and all prices are negotiable. Of course, there is less room for negotiating coverages and prices in a hard market, but a sound negotiation strategy and a quality submission will still produce better results.
In coaching session three, we will review and analyze a broad range of environmental issues and regulations that affect businesses. We will focus on some of the hot and emerging environmental issues we see today, and you will learn about a number of ways businesses can experience or be adversely affected by environmental liabilities and how environmental insurance can protect their assets.
In session four, we will see a key resource you will use as a CeS – Environmental Risk Assessments or ERAs. ERAs are Competitive Environmental Intelligence designed to assist you in coaching businesses on managing and transferring their environmental exposures.
After you complete this course, you will have full access to the Environmental Strategist website.
When you go to the site, you will be able to review all the ERAs – along with a large number of resources to assist you as you coach your clients on managing and transferring their environmental exposures. The site is designed as a dynamic resource to build the environmental Strategist community. Think of it as the environmental Facebook. But instead of sharing family pictures, you will be able to access and share resources that will help us all protect human health and be responsible stewards of our environment.