Posted by Michael Evans on Fri, Nov 25, 2011 @ 11:00 AM
Plymouth Rock Assurance Offers Thoughts on Snowplow Coverage.
This time of year we get lots of questions about writing coverage for risks that snow plow, the Halloween surprise storm last week kick started these questions a bit earlier than usual. This week I thought I’d discuss the underwriting considerations we look at in evaluating these risks.
First, we view the plowing world in three basic categories: those that do just residential work (driveways etc...); those that do more commercial (parking lots) and those that plow for municipalities. Underwriters like to get the world into nice neat buckets- I suspect in the real world the groups are not mutually exclusive. However, understanding the amount of time a risk spends in each category helps us understand the total risk.
Another factor for us is the size of the vehicle, we expect that the light/medium types are more involved with the residential/commercial plowing and the heavier vehicles more involved with the municipalities.
A third factor is the non-plowing operations of the risk. Are the vehicles insured throughout the entire year? Or just on the road for the winter?
Of course, drivers matter.
We can entertain risks where the plowing is an incidental operation to their year round activities; they are primarily involved with commercial/residential plowing and only incidental municipal work if at all. The drivers will influence the pricing. We will need to reflect the additional plowing equipment in the physical damage rating. We are not a market for risks that really focus on plowing for city and towns or highways. Give us a call to talk about your plowing risk…