NIA | In The News | Reducing Agent E&O Exposures: A Simple Checklist

It's the simple things in life that both provide so much pleasure, and often result in so much bother. The latter is especially true in the insurance broker or agent business. Frequently, it's the simple things that are forgotten or overlooked or mishandled that cause the biggest problems from an Errors & Omissions perspective. How do we keep this from happening? We try to be careful, we try to be conscientious in our work habits, and often we trust to luck. But, there are ways to cut down on missing the little things, the details, that lead to the big problems.

One really simple way to help avoid problems is to regularly use checklists in your business processing. Checklists help remind us of the little things that often get overlooked. They remind us of changes in process or policy provisions that can lead to missed coverages. They remind us of all the things we already know but need a little help remembering.

Various business lines can have their own checklist. Checklists need to be comprehensive, but they can't be so extensive that they consume the process. The purpose is to remind you to inquire about coverages or other risk issues. And, they should cross reference: homeowners should trigger auto and personal umbrella issues; auto should trigger the homeowners and umbrella, and farm property should trigger the other lines. Using these will hopefully remind you of issues that you need to discuss with your insureds to make certain there are not gaps.