Admitted carriers
Rates and forms are filed with and reviewed by the state, and policyholders are protected by the Tennessee Insurance Guaranty Association if the carrier becomes insolvent.
Home › Declined risks
Hard to place
Declined by the standard market is where the search starts, not where it ends.
A declination is usually a statement about a carrier's appetite, not a verdict on your business. The market that writes declined risks is a different market with different rules, and it is worth understanding what you are buying.
The problem
Why businesses get declined
Most declinations have nothing to do with how you run your company. Carriers publish an appetite, and anything outside it is refused before an underwriter reads the detail. Roofing, trades working at height, hot work, older commercial buildings, and any operation a carrier has lost money on recently all fall outside somebody's appetite.
The reasons that do relate to you are prior losses, a gap in coverage, and being brand new with no history. A lapse is treated harshly because the carrier cannot see what happened during it.
When the admitted market will not write a risk, it moves to surplus lines. Non-admitted carriers are not unregulated, and many are very large and financially strong, but they operate under different rules and that difference matters.
Coverage
What we place, and what to read before you rely on it.
Surplus lines carriers
Do neither of those things. In exchange they can write risks and craft terms the admitted market will not. This is normal and often the only route for certain classes.
The guaranty fund difference
This is the trade you are making. Surplus lines policies are not protected by the Tennessee Insurance Guaranty Association. Carrier financial strength matters more as a result, which is why we look at the rating before we place it.
Surplus lines tax
Tennessee charges a surplus lines premium tax and a stamping fee, collected with the premium. Expect the total to exceed the quoted premium.
Manuscript forms
Surplus lines policies are not standardised. Two quotes at the same limit can exclude very different things, which is why comparing only the premium is a mistake in this market.
Moving back
Many risks move back to the admitted market after two or three clean years. It is worth re-marketing rather than renewing in surplus lines out of habit.
Submission
If you have been declined
Having these ready is the difference between an indication in two days and a submission that sits for three weeks.
- Get the declination in writing, including the stated reason
- Gather three to five years of loss runs from every prior carrier
- Write down anything that has changed since a past loss, including new procedures or equipment
- Note any gap in coverage and the reason for it
- Collect your current declarations page, if you still have coverage in force
- Identify any contract deadline you are working against, so we can prioritise
Related
Send the declarations page and we will tell you what is actually covered.
No fee to shop your coverage. If the standard market will not write it, we go to surplus lines and explain the difference before you sign anything.
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