Author Archives: Morgan O'Rourke

About Morgan O'Rourke

Morgan O’Rourke is editor in chief of Risk Management magazine and director of publications for the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS).

The Evolving Impact of Self-Insured Retentions and Deductibles

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As a growing numbers of insureds elect to control more of their insurance costs by increasing self-insured retentions (SIRs) and deductibles, a variety of issues have begun to emerge. In a Risk Management magazine online exclusive, attorneys Michael A. Hamilton and Michael Murphy of Nelson Levine de Luca & Horst, LLP discuss the impact of this decision and its evolving legal implications.

The duties and obligations of insurers and policyholders in relation to SIRs or deductibles have their genesis in two sources: the common law and the insurance contract. Principles of equity and good faith govern the relationship between the parties. However, as in most insurance coverage disputes, rights set forth in the insurance contract will control. Thus, courts will enforce clear policy language setting forth items such as an insured’s duties concerning the handling claims within the SIR, who must satisfy the SIR before an insurer’s obligations will be triggered, and an insurer’s duties when an insured is insolvent. The interplay between common law rights and contractual undertakings will help shape courts’ future decisions in this emerging area of insurance law.

For more, read the rest of this informative article, only on RMmagazine.com.

Ten Tips for Mitigating Risk in Construction Projects

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Coordinating insurance and risk management concerns with the need of a construction project can be challenging. In their latest, online-exclusive column in Risk Management magazine, Robert Horkovich and Kevin Connolly of Anderson, Kill & Ollick, offer some important tips to ensuring that insurance contracts and construction contracts are properly aligned.

1. Recognize the construction contract as the bedrock of risk management.
The contract documents are the place for agreements to provide insurance, as well as additional insured provisions, indemnity and exculpation clauses. They are also the place to make clear which parties are responsible for the many surprises that arise during the course of construction, from latent subsurface conditions to accidents and failures to construct the project in the manner that the owners and designers intended.

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Data Privacy in an Online World

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As social and business networking sites have taken off, data privacy has become increasingly more vulnerable. How can companies protect themselves while still taking advantage of what these new tools have to offer? In his latest online column, Joshua Gold of Anderson Kill & Olick examines the insurance and risk management measures that can prevent or mitigate unauthorized data access online.

Many forms of liability insurance protect against invasion of privacy claims. Should a policyholder be confronted by such a claim, umbrella insurance, general liability insurance, errors and omissions policies and other stand-alone specialty insurance policies should be checked for potential coverage. More proactively, if an insurance portfolio review reveals that those provisions have been written out of the businesses’ portfolio of insurance, the broker should be enlisted to get those increasingly important coverages back in.

For more, read the entire article, only on RMmagazine.com

Creating Value Through Risk

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Understanding how value is created and destroyed and the role that risk plays in this process is the key to any successful business operation. But achieving this understanding is easier said than done. In a new, online-exclusive Risk Management article, Jorgen Ellingson, a risk manager with Dubai-based TECOM Investments, offers a useful way to simplify the process through the use of a value and risk management framework.

Managing value and risk is generally an intuitive skill and learned by experience. By applying a discipline to this inherent process you can better manage value creation and avoid destruction from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. It is a balancing act between risk mitigation and risk exploitation and the winners will be those companies that understand the market and their value proposition better than their competition.

For more, read the rest of his informative article only on RMmagazine.com.