A senior underwriter specialising in medical malpractice says there’s significant change happening in the market, as one-size-fits-all solutions no longer cut it with clients.
Speaking to Insurance Business, Avraam Avraam – medical malpractice team leader for CFC underwriting – said it’s an interesting time to be writing the specialty class.
“Many of the general capacity providers, who have made a play for this business historically but not previously written the class in great volume, are currently feeling the effects of greater scrutiny due to poor performance in the market as a whole and are consequently under pressure to ensure that underwriting profit is achieved,” he said.
“Medmal is often embedded within casualty and has suffered the consequences of other poorly performing classes particularly where they have been written by a non-specialist underwriter.”
However, despite the challenges, Avraam said the market is now offering more tailored options so end customers can get coverage which better suits their unique needs.
“It’s a space that is definitely evolving rapidly and gone are the days when an ‘off the shelf’ standard market wording was acceptable to everyone involved in medmal,” said Avraam.
Commenting on specific custom trends, Avraam said there’s been a notable increase in cyber and professional indemnity cover blended with medmal.
“This will be a more frequent theme going forward, in our opinion,” he added, noting that insurers and underwriters will be under increasing pressure to demonstrate expertise in the area – but they aren’t the only ones.
“Brokers are having to ensure that they too are specialists in this area or are at least engaging with specialist underwriters who have an in-depth knowledge of the subject matter and a broad product offering to meet the potential risk exposures that the class presents,” said Avraam.
As a result, Avraam said brokers and their clients alike are keen to ensure that they have consistent support in a constantly moving and evolving medmal market.
“As we see changes and progression in technology, data analytics and medicine, there is a need to ensure that brokers have access to innovative and forward-thinking underwriters who will consider risks based on their experience and maintain collaborative dialogue with both clients and brokers to ensure their needs are met, or at least, better understood,” he said.
