Blog: James Thompson, D&O Specialist

When it came to reviewing, renewing and relaunching our Directors’ & Officers’ proposition to best protect individuals — coupled with our wider suite of flexible Management Protection products to safeguard companies’ financial stability —we were adamant about one thing: the need to prioritise personal service.

At the end of the day, we know what matters most to brokers is Pen Underwriting being easy to do business with and delivering more than just a great product.

What brokers and clients value in an insurance provider remains the same as it has always been: responsiveness, support when it’s needed most and direct access to decision-makers. And yet it can be all too easy for underwriters to lose sight of that when their attention is turned towards enhancing the technical specifications of a new proposition.

But no matter how extensive the breadth of your new policy wordings and definitions, no matter how many separate towers of cover with generous indemnity limits that can be increased or decreased according to need, and no matter how broad the range of specialist sectors you can tailor cover for, nothing beats getting the support you need when you need it most.

At Pen, we don’t want to just provide superior cover as standard. We want to work in partnership — providing you and your clients with added-value benefits and a proactive and personal service throughout the period of each and every policy.

So what can Pen’s new D&O offering provide that others may not?

• Team training: we don’t expect you to be D&O specialists — that’s our job. Pen can offer in-depth product training for you and your team and white-labelled marketing materials.
• Direct access to decision-makers: Our technical underwriting specialists are empowered as decision-makers and able to rate according to local market conditions.
• Confidential, specialist and timely advice: Your clients will get the specific help they need, when they need it most via four dedicated helplines — legal assistance, health & safety advisory, stress counselling and tax advice.

And how does Pen’s new D&O proposition deliver added value?

• Tailored wordings for your different client groups — for example, for charities & not-for-profit organisations; for solicitors; and for private companies.
• Wide range of cover extensions, provided at no additional cost — such as pollution defence costs (D&O) and social media and contractual liability defence costs (corporate liability) with the option to increase individual levels of indemnity, and provided on an Any One Claim basis, enabling your clients to buy a programme of cover truly tailored to their needs.
• Creation of bespoke policies — if you have a large book of business with a particular trade, we’ll use our expertise to create a bespoke policy.