The members of the BMS Property Specialty Practice contemplated the question of whether or not property exposure has changed during the past 6 weeks and for the foreseeable future, and if so, how? This prompted a healthy internal debate followed by several calls to underwriters for their opinions. Once again we swore people to anonymity to ensure we were getting honest feedback. We put the issue of BI exposure to the side during our conversations as there are enough people writing about that particular topic and this clearly is an area where increased uncertainty lies, as noted by our prior survey where 75% of respondents indicated a heightened level of concern. Instead, we focused on topics such as “the conveyer belt isn’t running but the factory is now a vacant property, does that constitute a lower loss cost?”
The general take away from our conversations is everything is complicated now. Peer review meetings are gobbling up hours as evolving and emerging exposures are discussed and new policy warrants are drafted and debated with brokers. Underwriters are forced to think about risks in today’s world, and what a partially reopened world might look like for their insured(s). Below is a sampling of the topics that arose during these conversations.