Portfolio Insurances

We work with investors to help them secure better protection, enhanced service and support from their insurance advisors and where possible, reduced premiums for their portfolio companies and where this is not possible, we seek to minimise premium increases.

Whether it’s an individual company or a planned process involving all the companies in a portfolio, we can carry out a technical review and manage the renewal process or we can complete a full insurance programme review and reconstruction; Matrix has a proven track-record of delivering exceptional results that drive added value for our M&A clients.

Completely independent and totally-transparent, we work in parallel with the normal annual insurance renewal process to minimise the impact of increasing renewal premiums whilst also maximising our clients’ market opportunities.

The insurance classes most affected have been the financial lines insurances such as Professional Indemnity, Directors’ & Officers’ Liability, Crime and Cyber Liability, together with certain market sectors such as Construction, Food and Leisure. This has been caused by various factors including poor global claims experience and a reduction in capacity arising from some Insurers withdrawing from underwriting such unattractive risks. Furthermore, we have seen this increasing of rates spreading to other areas of the market as is the normal experience when the insurance market cycle turns.

Insurance brokers increasingly commoditised the transacting of insurance so that a Company’s renewal of its insurance programme became an almost automatic process. Clients’ expectation was to see cost savings at each renewal, or, at least, existing rates being maintained.

A corollary of this was that the renewal process became very reactive rather than proactive with brokers rolling over existing arrangements in what became almost a “rubber stamp” exercise. This was not an issue during the soft market conditions as the entire renewal process was not a challenging exercise.

All this has changed with the current hardening conditions in the insurance market which, for many brokers working in the industry today, is the first time they have experienced this phenomenon.

To this situation has been added the impact of the pandemic which, primarily, has resulted in a considerable slowdown in the insurance transaction process because of increased challenges arising from home-working and backlog that built up during the pandemic.

As a result, for a large number of our Clients, we have seen many instances of brokers not managing their Clients’ expectations and advising substantial premium increases with only days to go before renewal, and little time to consider alternative options.

Against this background, a prime objective must be to ensure that the right messages are being communicated to Insurers and that a Company’s risk profile is being properly presented and positioned so as to provide a clear differentiation thus justifying better treatment from Insurers in terms of cost and cover.

Matrix focus on insurance 24/7 which has given us an in-depth perspective of the capabilities and resources of the broker and Insurer community. Our extensive project work also provides us with an ongoing insight to current and future market developments together with the implications for our Clients.

In this market environment the challenge facing the insurance buyer is how best to meet the requirements for reviewing and validating the corporate insurance arrangements in the most efficient manner possible in order to satisfy the operational and corporate governance needs of the organisation.

Our fully independent insurance programme audit and review can provide the most effective solution by establishing the best insurance programme strategy and giving the necessary peace of mind both internally within the business and for external stakeholders.

Our specialists work in parallel with the normal annual insurance renewal process to minimise the impact of a hardening market and maximise our clients’ market opportunities.