Today’s case study is just another example of how companies benefit from The Whitlock Group’s insurance audit process. Many prospective clients are hesitant to go through an audit because they are used to telling their agent what they need, not realizing that every insurance policy is different and that the policies they think they need may not provide enough coverage. Fortunately, our insurance audit process has proved to be a beneficial tool many times over because it helps uncover gaps in coverage and opportunities for consolidating policies. In today’s case, our insurance audit process did just that for an organization offering preventive and mental health care to homeless and medically underserved individuals in the Metro Atlanta area.

The organization is unique because services are provided at different locations throughout the week, rather than a centralized clinic. Those sites carry their own property and liability policies, while the organization provides its own medical professional policy. Through our insurance audit we discovered that the medical professional policy in place excluded abuse and molestation coverage, as well as claims associated with HIPPA compliance. It also completely left out coverage for mental health counseling. The organization also did not have coverage in place for employees driving personally owned vehicles for work as they travelled from site to site. The Whitlock Group was able to fill the gaps with the appropriate coverage.

In some cases we recommend a client combine their policy effective dates to one common date, as it has many benefits such as decreasing the workflow related to insurance and an improvement of efficiencies in addition to avoiding gaps in coverage. We have found that many insurance companies will not provide an excess liability (umbrella) policy when there is not a common renewal date. This can lead to an excess liability policy that only extends to some but not all of the company’s primary liability policies. Unfortunately, this error is not caught by many insurance agencies.

In this client’s case, there were multiple policies renewing on different dates, which we were able to consolidate into one, and we added an umbrella policy. When the process was over, we provided our client with the coverage they needed and still saved them 15% on insurance costs.

Consolidating policies also offers several other benefits when it comes to the workflow related to insurance. When policies renew on or near the same effective date, the meetings associated with the quoting process become more streamlined. Additionally, Certificates of Insurances only have to be issued once versus being issued every time a policy renews. Another great benefit of consolidation is that billing can be combined on an account basis versus having multiple invoices.

Though they may seem like insignificant details, small things like having policies with a common effective date are issues that should be discusses with every client and that’s why we include that discussion in our insurance audit process. If your business has multiple policies that you’d like to consolidate, The Whitlock Group is here to help. Contact us today to request a quote.