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Corporate Client & Self Insurers
As well as our extensive list of insurer clients, we also act for a large range of non-insurer corporates.
We have many years of experience acting for exempt and self-insured entities in the workers’ compensation field (please also see Compensation section).
Gilchrist Connell has also acted for a number of entities with significant deductibles or self-insured retentions in the fields of public liability, product liability and professional indemnity. These clients include: a mining company, a major retailer, a motor vehicle manufacturer, an international engineering firm, an airport owner, a national commercial builder, an international manufacturer of electrical pumps and associated components and the world’s leading wine cork producer.
We are very familiar with these types of entities and issues involving their top up and excess layer insurers and we work to deliver prompt, cost effective and commercially acceptable outcomes in cases involving claims for personal injury, material damage, economic loss, loss of reputation and other damages.
We have expertise and experience in assisting corporate entities to review their contractual and trading terms from an insurance and risk perspective. We also review insurance programmes and policy coverage in conjunction with the client’s insurance broker, to assist the client understand the full scope of cover afforded by their insurance programme.
Risk Management
Our experience in this field goes back to 2001, following the failure of HIH, when we acted directly for a number of businesses, large and small, whose risk management programme had previously consisted entirely of an insurance policy with an HIH company.
Building on the invaluable experience we gained in assisting those entities, we developed good relations with most of the major insurance broking firms. In conjunction with those businesses and other appropriate experts, we can advise clients on issues such as the types of insurance coverage available, the extent and value of that cover, contractual protection available in the client’s trading terms, the dangers of accepting risk and indemnity terms in the contractual documents of customers and clients, Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare issues and the like.
We are pleased to have been able to greatly improve the understanding of a number of corporate entities in relation to risk management, and to help them position their businesses to be better protected against claims both via insurance cover, systems, improved trading terms and improved contractual documentation. Our experience in “back end” risk management - namely, the litigation in which we specialize - also helps us understand the key issues and work with our corporate clients to minimize that risk at the “front end” through appropriate management, systems, contract documentation, terms of trade and reporting mechanisms. |
