Boots on the Street

Ahren Hohenwarter

Identifying and Analyzing Risk

In a previous entry we discussed the 6 steps of both the ERM and TRM process; the first two are Identifying and Analyzing your organization’s risk.
As part of the risk management process, we look to confirm that your risk management approach supports your overall business objectives. As a business owner, what keeps you up at night? If that concern occurred, how would your income or cash flow be affected if there were unforeseen expenses or a shutdown of your operations?
Discussing the qualitative aspects of your business provides the important details needed to design a program that addresses your exposures while producing a ROI. Exposures are both qualitative and quantitative...

Own It or Rent It?

By Tim Finster

This is not a phrase normally associated with the purchase of insurance. Usually it’s reserved for discussions about real estate, cars or office equipment. But it’s possible with insurance too. The major corporations have done it for many years.

Who was the first? I don’t know, but it might have been Kaiser. Henry J. Kaiser was the founder of the Kaiser Industrial Complex. In 1939, he opened a cement plant in Cupertino, CA. A creek ran through his facility, Permanente Creek. Henry decided to do something to get control of his employee’s health care expenses. He created a program to better serve the health care needs of his employees, reducing his annual costs and providing better health care for his people...

What Does A First-Time Enterprise Risk

Management Candidate Think About?

By Tim Finster, Vice Chairman

I get this question all of the time.  What is Enterprise Risk Management?  How does someone know if they would benefit from it?  Why would I be interested in Risk Management?

The answers are really very simple.  Consider the following.

As a consumer, have you ever wondered if you left money on the table as soon as your agent finished renewing your commercial insurance policies?  Want to know how much that could be?

Have you ever wondered why your rates are going up when you haven’t had any claims activity?  Who’s getting the extra money?

Have you ever considered what it would mean financially to remove yourself from the general insurance buying pool and buy your coverage base...