Developing insurance programmes

Optimization scheme of insurance is a part of risk management in any enterprise. The Certus Group offers its Clients a complete analysis of the scope of coverage of operations and identification of its insurance needs. Only in this way, the insurance cover can be tailored exactly to the needs of the client.

Our aim is to prepare the concept of insurance which will bring tangible benefits for customers. We realize this goal by creating an individual program of insurance that provides optimum protection at the best prices.

On the basis of the analysis of the customer needs, the Certus Group prepares RFQ including custom products connected with their peculiar activities. In order to obtain for the client the best deals in insurance the Certus Group cooperates with all reputable Insurers on the Polish and international market.

The Certus Group focuses on the individual negotiations of the insurance conditions. Our company before submitting bids always take action negotiating with Insurers to provide customers the best range of insurance cover preserving a very attractive price.

All our actions performed on behalf of the client are presented by the Certus Group in specially prepared report containing among others: data from the question of the offer that meet the insurance needs of a customer, the comparison of the offers received, and the Certus Group’s recommendation for the best offer.

With our support, the customer chooses the offer and the Certus Group takes over the responsibilities associated with the conclusion of the contract of insurance. The procedures for checking the policy data, receiving documentation from the insurer and its delivery to the customer, are on our company’s side.

Management of the insurance programmes

The Certus Grup carries out an analysis of the records of the procedures existing at customers, contracts with contractors and other documents, which may expose customers to the increased risk.

In the framework of the service offered by our company: we manage and upgrade the insurance of our customers related to possible amendments on the insurance market or to the scope of the client’s activities.

The Certus Group fully takes over the responsibilities of the monitoring and administration of programs of insurance customers. Our employees inform the customers in advance about the impending end of the period of insurance, the terms of payment of insurance premiums or the timing of the successive installments.

Claim settlement

The Certus Group offers its Customers not only the support associated with the conclusion of the contract of insurance or its management, but also actively participates in the process of settling claims. In addition to creating procedures for settling claims, our employees help customers:

• By providing initial information about the reasonableness of damage from the policy, making verification of insurance, checking of the share price and other entries in the insurance contract;
• By controlling the correctness of the documentation provided to the insurer,
• By providing assistance in the completion,
• By supervising timeliness measures of the insurer related to the liquidation of damage;
• By checking the accuracy given by the insurer's decision, the amount of compensation,
• By appealing of the insurer against the refusal of payment of compensation which is incompatible with the provisions of the insurance contract;
• By supervising the regressive investigation carried out by the insurer

For clients who have concluded the insurance through the Certus Group site, the service connected with the process of elimination of damage is completely free of charge.

We also provide offers for customers who would like to employ our company only in the range of settling claims. For this purpose, please contact with our company in order to prepare a detailed offer.

Trainings

On request of the client our specialists carry out trainings consisting of:

• Presentation of examples of the damage to the industry
• Presentation of damage procedures
• Familiarization of the personnel with the main provisions of the insurance company
• Familiarization of the personnel with current provisions related to the insured activities
• Others suggested by the customer

Civil liability Insurance

The conclusion of the policy of civil liability should be the first and most important decision of each client. Experience and statistics of developed markets insurance show that the most frequent and highest compensation always are paid out of the civil liability insurance.

The broker’s goal is the selection of the appropriate scope of liability insurance to cover the damage associated with the activities of the client.

On the insurance market we are dealing with various General Terms and Conditions Insurance entries and capabilities enabling extensions to the range of coverage. Among the many products we can choose the simplest range, i.e. claim CL and specialized products. Civil liability related to an erroneous information / advertising.

The Civil Liability might be split into a delictual one and the contractual one:

• The delictual civil liability is taken from the provision of Civil Law article 415:

  „Who's to blame for someone’s damage, must repair it.”This responsibility applies to liability for unlawful act.

• The contractual civil liability is taken from the provision of Civil Law article 471:

  „The debtor is obliged to repair the damage resulting from the non-performance or the unsatisfactory performance of the obligation, unless the non-performance or the unsatisfactory performance are a result of the circumstance which the debtor isn't bearing responsibility for.” It is the responsibility for the damage caused by the non-performance or the unsatisfactory performance of the agreement or obligations.

We most often come across the following insurance policies of the civil liability:

• General delictual and contractual civil liability
• Product defect insurance
• Civil liability of the road carrier
• Civil liability of the shipper (spediteur)
• Professional civil liability (civil liability of a tax adviser, the statutory auditor, the intermediary of the real estate trading, the barrister, solicitor and other occupational groups)

Property insurance

Insuring property consists in the proper insurance cover of objects exposed to damage. The most popular covers on the market: are:

• Classical structure, in which only risks mentioned in the insurance contract are protected.

  The classical structure can appear in two options:

  • through applying the so-called basic scope of the coverage
  • or divided in the basic scope and additional risks (full scope)
• Structure of the All Risk type where all risks are provided with the coverage apart from exclusions.

Even a wide range of insuring according to the classical structure is narrower than the insurance cover based on the All Risks structure.

The most popular property insurance are:

• fire insurance and of other vicissitude
• insuring against every risks
• insuring the electronic equipment

A very important issue of property insurance policies is a proper cover limit for:

• a burglary and a robbery
• electric damage
• vandalism

Loss of Profit Insurance

Insurance against the loss of profit is one of the most important extensions of the property insurance policy which many entrepreneurs unfortunately aren't buying out. In case of the appearance of the damage the Loss of Profit Insurance allows to close the financial year with the result as if the damage didn't appear. The Loss of Profit Insurance is covering all fixed costs as well as the planned profit in the compensatory period.

Protecting the loss of profit is complementary cover for insuring the property and should always go hand in hand with it. It is particularly important for producing companies. The payment from the property insurance policy will cover compensations only in the durable property, however the company in the period of the stoppage caused by the damage is suffering losses fixed costs, and most importantly isn't making a planned profit. Covering above losses in case of the producer is a key element of insurance.

Still some years ago, to make a profit loss insurance policy work, an appearance of the damage was necessary, however as a result of the professional operation of insurance brokers, it isn't a necessary condition any more. What we need is to select proper extensions of the range of the cover.

Third – party and Comprehensive Insurance

Every owner of the mechanical vehicle in Poland is obliged for the conclusion of a contract of insuring the third party liability insurance. The base of this is an “Act About Obligatory Insurances, An Insurance Guarantee Fund And The Polish Office Of Communications Insurers” from 22 May 2003 (Dz. U. Nr 124, poz.1152). A role of the broker in his conclusion can concern only in getting the minimum price of insurance.

Despite above, involving the broker in comprehensive motor insurance, can have a gigantic influence on the extent of protection and an insurance cost. The comprehensive motor insurance is a voluntary insurance, but in the case of car fleet it is an essential requirement providing correct functioning of the company and protecting from severe financial burdens associated with using the vehicle.

Creating the individual programme of Third – party insurance should have an impact on costs, and most importantly should optimize expenses incurred by the entrepreneur. The most popular is an implementation of the system of employee/perpetrator ‘s participating in costs of further damages.

Technical insurance (MB, CAR, EAR)

Insuring machines against damage is a next extension of the property insurance policy arranged for more important machines of the enterprise. On account of heavy costs of such insurance as well as compulsory property notification requirements , only machines essential for functioning of the enterprise are being provided with the covering.

Insurance policies of all risks of the structure and the assembly can be entered by:

• Investor,
• General contractor,
• Company managing a project
• Or each of particular contractors – it is seldom practiced on account of the threat of not-protecting the meeting of works.

Most often practiced world standard, and common in Poland too is concluding the insurance of all risks in construction and assembly works by the Investor. It is because of many reasons of which the most essential is:

• certainty of the optimum and uniform insurance cover for investment.

Comprehension of the enterprise from its early stage by the Investor, and consequently possibly full awareness of potential hazards can enable implementing optimal solutions.

Assignment of the insurance obligation to the main contractor is threatening with entering the insurance policy with the inappropriate insurance cover. Assurance policy of all construction and assembly risks has a standard, basic range of the covering (contained on the basis of "Munich" conditions) with many clauses widening or narrowing the insurance cover.

It is quite a special insurance policy requiring the big insurance knowledge and investment processes. It is hard in the agreement with the General Contractor to specify in detail the scope of the coverage and special records, and then regularly verify if all above conditions were met.

Above mentioned pluses of such a structure of insurance (the Investor is buying the insurance policy of all construction and assembly risks) are extremely significant because of the fact that the Investor is taking the following risk:

• Objects, in which works are being conducted are owned by the Investor so the best scope of covering of the insurance is his own interest
• The investor is making pre - payments towards the realization of the contract
• The investor is paying installments along with progress of works

Possibility of including the ALOP assurance policy - loss of profit of the Investor

Advanced Loss of Profits (ALOP ) protects the loss of profit of the Investor as a result of the included damage in construction and assembly insurance extremely essential from a point of view of the Investor, however the general contractor doesn't have a legal interest in entering it.

In this insurance the coverage includes the loss of profit of the Investor in the case of delayed transfer investment to the use provided that the delay is a result of the damage in the contract work which rose for some reasons not clearly excluded in general insurance conditions.

This protection is unusually substantial, when the Investor in all or partly is availing himself with external financing. it is necessary to pay installments of credit off even though investment isn't still producing revenue.

On-going audit of the coverage range

In case of change of the date of the implementation of an investment project, the increase in the value of the contract or the need to include additional risks, the Investor can react quickly and effectively if he is the owner of the insurance policy.

If the General Contractor is the owner of insurance policy, implementing amendments to the insurance policy requires time-consuming explanations and arrangements. Having extra costs we can often come across the lack of the willpower of the cooperation from the side of General Contractor.

Audit of compensation

it seems it is the most essential argument for entering an insurance by the Investor.

In case of entering an insurance by the Investor the payment of possible compensation is given directly to him. The compensation from the insurance policy is being paid to the Investor irrespective of whether the damage is regarding the accepted, or also not-accepted stage of works.

When we are dealing with the second coincidence, the Investor is transferring the compensation to the general contractor, letting him easily remove the damage and continue works.

In the course of the entire investment process, the Investor can control the flow of compensations. It is an Investor who decides, who and when receives the money for continuation of works.

In case of insuring investment through the General Contractor – he is a beneficiary one and the payment of compensation is made directly for him. The whole process of the flow of compensations takes place beyond the Investor and the Investor has no control over this process. The investor can receive compensation, but a general contractor must give consent to it.

Insurance cost

The insurance cost must be carried anyway. Entering an insurance and offloading its cost onto the general contractor is definitely the best solution for the investor. The market practice of the recent years has accepted the above solution and it is slowly becoming a market standard.

Insuring possessions in the transport (cargo)

Insuring possessions in transport is a voluntary insurance, directed at entrepreneurs transporting their possessions (machines, goods and the like) by own, rented or leased means of transport and at entrepreneurs using supplied services by common carriers. This insurance is often undervalued i by companies using transport services.

The majority of customers think that entering this kind of insurance is an unnecessary expense, because in the light of transport agreements it is the carrier who is responsible for the damage in the cargo. It is useful to notice that the responsibility of the carrier is limited by both Polish and international provisions. Apart from the responsibility of the carrier for the damage incurred only in the phase of the transport (loading and protecting activities are usually responsibility of a sender, unloading activities of the recipient), additionally the carrier can free himself of the responsibility using any conditions that can discharge him from liabilities included in provisions, e.g if the damage arose as a result of circumstances which the carrier could not avoid or prevent from.

With next virtue, resulting from using insuring cargo insurance, there is a possibility of obtaining full damage compensation (not taking into account possible own shares of the insured person). We cannot obtain such a compensation from the carrier, because according to the Convention CMR (Art. 23) the compensation paid by the carrier cannot exceed 25 francs for 1 kg of the missing gross weight.

Pursuing claims directly towards the carrier is a complicated process because of the need to complement specific and long lasting procedures and most often ending with a litigation).

Holding the insurance policy is giving the possibility of alternative seeking claims for damages from the insurer, and in this case the procedure is much faster and requires the lower commitment on the part of the protected company. In line with general insurance conditions, the company has 30 days for the payment of compensation counting from the day of completing full documentation of the damage concerned

It is possible to provide cargo insurance for goods in the, train transport, air, as well as inland or road transport. Insurers usually offer a few variants of insurance. If the company wants to avoid losses caused by action of the nature (fortuitous events) or by accident of the means of transport it can use the basic variant offered by the insurer. Other variants, widened, or full are ensuring the greater coverage. It is worthwhile thinking about their choice in case of the greater risk of the theft of goods or also an appearance of other, sudden, unexpected event.

Depending on individual needs of the Customer and character of activity conducted by him, it is possible to provide goods with insuring cargo insurance both during the single transport as well as transport taken place in the accounting period (in the form of rotational, opened or flat-rate insurance policy).

Third party liability insurance (OC) of members of the management board

A responsibility for damages to property, by which one should understand financial losses caused by members of the management board, is provided with insuring or of the supervisory board as a result of the unsatisfactory performance, or neglecting duties , consisting of representing the company and managing the current affairs of the company.

Bases of liability / claims against members of governing bodies of the company result from regulations:

• Civil Code
• Code of Commercial Partnerships and Companies
• Labour Act
• Act on the public securities trading
• Bankruptcy and repair law Act
• Accounting Act

To members of the management board can be the following sources of claims:

• Commercial losses
• Mergers / takeovers
• Unsuccessful investme9nt of the cash flow of the company
• Sale of the company's assets
• Obligations for commercial debts
• Public share issues
• Liquidation
• Mistakes in the management
• Employees disputes

The right to bring the claim against members of governing bodies of the company have:

• a company
• creditors
• shareholders
• KNF
• State Treasury
• employees
• other third parties

Financial insurance together with insuring the merchant credit and insurance guarantees

Financial insurance, including insuring the merchant credit and insurance guarantees, is one of most restrictive insurance. There are stiff procedures and formal requirements, which allow however to cover the financial losses, regardless of the protected entity.

Warranties that are most popular are: deposit, of adequate workmanship of the contract and repairing defects and faults - since we most often come across these warranties as the allowance of building-installation insurance.

The merchant credit is a very complex insurance and verification of conclusion costs Is the most important stage of the broker’s work. Insurers make the rate of contribution conditional on many elements, of which the most important are:

• Rate from the trade
• Payment for the issue of a decision /credit ceiling
• Payment for the debt collection proceedings
• Height of own shares

Life insurance

Life Insurance is aimed at preventing the close family from financial loss that death of the insured can cause. This kind of insurance can link the protective function with the economical one. Depending on the type of insurance the economical function can be more or less emphasized, and it is dependent on the rate of contribution.

Life insurance with the Insurance equity fund is a financial plan joining elements of the full insurance of he close family with the investment manner of the capital accumulation . This insurance allows for the freedom of investing capital and is giving the comfort of being insured through the entire life.

The Term Life Insurance is a product of purely protective character. It doesn't have an economical element, but thanks to that has a very low contribution but a high insurance sum.

All whole life insurance has a characteristic protective function, but it also includes an economical element.

The Life and Live Insurance possess a dominating economical element.

The Pension Plan is unique product on the Polish market, amassing capital for this period, in which we aren't already professionally active.

Insurance in case of the stay in hospital is protecting the moment of illness or the accident even to a number of days determined in general insurance conditions.

Insurance in case of Serious Illness is not only applying to the insured, but also his family.

Insurance in case of the damage of health as a result of unfortunate accidents - provides the financial protection which will alleviate the effects of unpredictable and unpleasant events. Benefits of insurance are the financial resources for the treatment or the rehabilitation giving feeling comfort in difficult times.

One should remember that in life insurance the protective function is the most important one. The purchase of life insurance should first protect against the risk of losses incurred as a result of the death of the insured, and only then allow to save money.