The frequency and severity of business interruption losses in Asia are increasing
Faced with rising inflation and incidences of natural disasters, cyberattacks, geopolitical conflict and other risk events, organisations in Asia increasingly report difficulties in accurately assessing their risk exposures at placement and renewal of their property damage and business interruption (PDBI) insurance policies, especially since the calculation of insurance gross profit differs from accounting gross profit.
Hence, while PDBI insurance coverage can be a critical financial tool for protecting business performance and growth, continued effectiveness of the coverage depends on whether the organisation can perform the appropriate review process to calculate their declared values — failure to do so could result in costly underinsurance penalties in the event of a loss.
Key participants in the business interruption review (BI review) process may include risk and insurance managers, operation managers and financial controllers. The review aims to answer pertinent questions such as:
- How long would it take my business to recover from an event?
- Are there gaps in my current coverage and what adjustments (if any) should be considered?
- Do my current internal processes and typical BI worksheet properly capture my risk exposure?
- In the event of damage to my business or to a third party, what is the maximum foreseeable loss (MFL) exposure?
- What is my organisation’s Anticipated Maximum Business Interruption Loss (AMBIL), which considers variables of potential mitigation actions?
Choosing the right partner for business interruption insurance and declared value reviews
To understand your true exposure to BI risk, establish an accurate values baseline and obtain the appropriate amount of coverage, the first step is to recognise the following mistakes that organisations commonly make:
- Misconception or misunderstanding in determining the accurate business interruption declared values.
- Insufficient maximum indemnity periods to enable recovery.
- Inconsistent interpretation of policy wording.
- Inadequate supply chain protection, both internal and external to the organisation, and restrictive territorial clauses.
Given these potential missteps, it is advisable to conduct your BI review by partnering with a trusted insurance broker and risk advisor. Organisations that have done so have benefited from leveraging data for accurate and comprehensive assessments of coverage, risks and loss scenarios.
The right partner also has the capability to deliver BI review workshops and trainings, which help the organisation implement solutions recommended in the review and make risk transfer and mitigation decisions with confidence.
Marsh Claims Solutions: Your trusted partner for business interruption coverage reviews
Serving enterprises of all sizes and industries, the Marsh Claim Solutions Forensics team conducts BI reviews that include declared values and policy wording reviews, loss scenarios analysis and training to provide tailored recommendations and solutions. The process leverages the key strengths of Marsh — the world’s largest insurance broker and risk advisor — in the following ways:
- Data-driven insights via an in-depth assessment of BI declared values and loss scenarios covering a variety of risks including earthquakes, typhoons, floods and fires.
- Extensive claims experience with expertise in both claims preparation and advocacy, as well as critical insights on BI coverage requirements.
- Breadth of expertise that is not limited to property damage or business interruption insurance policies, encompassing delay in start-up (DSU) and cyber policies across all industries.
- Geographic coverage with specialised BI experts across Asia’s countries and territories.
- Collaborative model bringing together the collective strength of Marsh teams in Property Risk and Valuations as well as Analytics and Claims Solutions to assess risks.
Our Testimonials
“Marsh Claims Solutions understood our complex business quickly and provided their in-depth claims expertise to help ensure our BI declared values accurately reflected our risk, which was not in place previously.” – Marsh Claims Solutions client A
“We appreciate the advice provided on the methodology in estimating our BI declared value, protecting us from the application of average clause due to underinsurance.” – Marsh Claims Solutions client B
