After years of losses in the multifamily habitational market, insurers have become far more cautious for both property and casualty coverages, cutting back capacity or even leaving the market altogether. Rates and deductibles have been rising—sometimes significantly—as carriers, more closely scrutinize the risks they are willing to entertain while adding a variety of exclusions.

Active assailants continue to threaten businesses, houses of worship, schools and public events across the United States. Reported instances of workplace violence, ranging from threats to physical assaults and homicides, impact nearly 2 million Americans each year.

Parametric insurance has made its biggest impact so far with catastrophe bonds covering large-scale risks, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, but the concept is becoming more common in commercial and residential insurance. It’s called parametric because rather than responding to a specific loss, the coverage pays out when an agreed “metric” such as wind speed or ground shaking reaches or exceeds certain intensity. Insurers are offering such coverage based on a wide variety of other metrics, including barometric pressure, rainfall, average snowfall, river water levels, storm surge as measured by tide gauges and even hotel occupancy rates.

Much like energy resources themselves, the insurance marketplace for energy-sector businesses has abundant capacity. There is, however, upward pressure generally on rates in 2019, and some tightening in excess liability coverages specifically. To obtain the broadest coverage at optimal pricing, retail agents and their insureds should approach the marketplace in a strategic way and explore options for structuring their energy insurance programs.

Insurisk is CRC Group’s exclusive products facility has recently launched CAT+, an A rated property capacity for middle market business that is primarily CAT-exposed. CAT+ can accommodate costal exposure risks from Texas all the way to the Carolinas.