Five strategies to reduce your insurance renewal bill

During the current economic downturn every business is looking for ways to cut expenses, including how to decrease the cost of their insurance program without cutting or reducing coverage that could leave them financially exposed in the event of a loss.

Here are five simple suggestions that should allow you to see some savings come renewal time.

CONSOLIDATE: Place all your lines of coverage into a specialty program. Personal lines carriers are constantly advertising the pricing benefits of consolidating home, auto, and boat insurance. Did you know that the same concept applies to your winery/vineyard insurance? Insurance companies realize the need to be competitive in today's market and sometimes have the ability to offer you the opportunity to include your private residence, its contents, including fine art, wine collection's , personal autos and watercraft in your winery/vineyard policy. This consolidation will save you money and give you the convenience of having all your coverage with a single carrier.

LOYALTY: Just as you appreciate your loyal wine club members, your insurance company also appreciates and wants to keep your business. Many companies offer loyalty discounts, some of which are not published, and your broker should be able to negotiate savings for you at renewal. Insurance rates have been at historic lows and according to the industry experts; it's only a matter of time until this soft market turns hard. We are already starting to see rate increases here in the 3rd Quarter of 2009. Loyalty with your carrier will be a benefit as rates increase.

SPECIALIZE: Work with a wine industry specialist. Typically, rural agricultural areas have been serviced by local insurance agents. This worked well when family farming was the predominant business in the region. Given the complexity of today's wine business, brokers with access to multiple carriers and the market clout to get pricing benefits from doing substantial business with these carriers, offer you multiple choices at preferred rates.

RE-EVALUATE: Use an insurance professional to analyze all of your limits and coverage's. Maybe you have consolidated some of your warehousing or reduced production and staffing levels. How is your most valuable asset valued? Carriers sometimes rate cased goods differently thereby penalizing small premium producers of expensive wines. Taking time to analyze all of these items could end up saving you premium dollars.

IDENTIFY COSTS OF RISK: Has your broker been involved in helping you identify your total cost of risk? If you think about it, there are other expenses not usually considered when assessing the costs of your risk. We find most of the time, business owners only consider the cost of insurance, but in fact they should be considering related expenses. For instance, how much did you spend on insurance deductibles last year, uncovered losses, attorney fees, business advisory services, HR issues and OSHA compliance? Have you thought about adding these expenses to your true costs? When working with your professional insurance broker, you should ask if there are any further solutions they can offer to help reduce or offset some of these expenses. Think about leaning on your broker to perform as your risk manager.