2016 NSPE / ACEC / AIA / AIA TRUST PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY INSURANCE SURVEY OF CARRIERS

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1 2016 NSPE / ACEC / AIA / AIA TRUST PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY INSURANCE SURVEY OF CARRIERS INTERVIEW QUESTIONS PLEASE PROVIDE A WRITTEN RESPONSE TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS. These questions will be asked of each carrier that is interviewed on Thursday, September 29, 2016 at the Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown/Magnificent Mile. Carriers that are scheduled to be interviewed are asked to fill out this WORD document form and it to legal@nspe.org by COB Friday, September 2, 2016, and bring their written responses to the interview so the sponsoring organizations will have a complete written file. Company Name: Hanover Insurance Company Your Name: Katherine (Kitty) L. Dimit Your Title: Vice President Address: 333 W. Pierce Road, Suite 300 City/State/Zip: Itasca, IL Phone: Fax: kdimit@hanover.com Website: Hanover Professional Portfolio 1. What is your outlook for the P/C insurance industry as a whole, in particular the A/E Industry? What challenges and changes do you foresee in the coming years? We are continuing to see many mergers and acquisitions from all parties including insurance carriers, insurance agents as well as A/E firms. For example, prior to the recent economic downturn, there were more than 80,000 independent insurance agencies nationally and as of 2015, there were less than 40,000 independent insurance agencies. Statistics are similar for insurance carriers and AE firms. We expect to see great change in how professional liability and P&C lines are produced as the millennials become meaningful buyers. In the coming years, we expect to see easy to use on-line applications with direct-writer carriers. Seems millennials are less likely to pay on average 15% more in insurance premiums to 1

2 interact live with an insurance agent especially when so many value adds are provided directly by the carrier (competitive direct bill payment plans, contract review, continuing education offerings and general risk management advice). We are continuing to see staffing issues for all parties as well including insurance carriers, specialty insurance agencies, AE firms and especially contractors. There are more specialty insurance markets having difficulty finding qualified specialty claims examiners, underwriters and management. For contractors, labor shortages are causing more contractor claims for cost overruns and project delays blaming the AE for the quality of construction documents. AE s should expect to see more contractor requests for information and change order requests. 2. What is your targeted market? Is this a change from the past? Have you made significant changes in underwriting practices (e.g. limits, firm type, client type, etc.)? A/E firms in private practice with gross billings up to $35,000,000 designing traditional construction type projects. Hanover continues to thoughtfully grow its A&E Program and our underwriting appetite continues to expand commensurate with our growth. 3. What is your program experiencing relative to frequency and severity of claims (e.g., by discipline, firm size, project types, and region)? Our claims frequency is down slightly and very consistent, but severity has increased significantly. # of claims per $1k of earned premium (frequency) % % % % % 2016 ytd 1% # of claims per $1mm of earned gross billings (frequency) % % % % % 2016 ytd 11% Severity (average claim payment) 2011 $91, $92, $91, $53,341 2

3 2015 $43, ytd $11,441 From 2011 to 2016, approximately 2/3 of all claims were closed without payment. Additionally, approximately 10% of all closed claims were reopened within 2 to 3 years from date closed. See attached annual listing of 2016 Judicial Hellholes WV, PA and SC were our worst performing states as respects severity. Main severity was from structural engineers sued for significant bodily injury claims due building collapses as well as from inadequate foundation design on industrial and residential projects in poor claims venues. Our next worst performing project types were hotels and schools in NY, TN and PA for architects and HVAC engineers. Federal, state and local agencies and governments are aggressively pursuing cost recovery techniques, especially true for cash-strapped schools, universities and DOT s. While our results in CA have been very favorable, it is noteworthy that CA has passed 4,893 new laws during the period 2010 to 2015 averaging over 800 new laws/year with a peak of 931 new laws passed in Have you seen, or do you anticipate, increased risk of claims related to the following? If you answer yes to any of the items a-d below, please describe how you anticipate addressing those risks. a. Alternative Delivery Methods i. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) No, have not seen enough to comment ii. Design-Build (D/B) Yes, D/B continues to grow in popularity while leaving many design professionals open to uninsurable risks that are not found in design-bid-build projects. Design professionals need to understand that many of the construction cost increases that an owner may entertain in traditional design-bid-build go away under the design-build delivery process including non-negligent errors and omissions. Design Professionals working with design build firms continue to accept uninsurable liability via the incorporation of the owner design-builder agreement into the design-builder design professional agreement. Risks related to: omissions, non-negligent errors, language requiring design services to be free of defects and 3 party over indemnity (being responsible for bodily injury of own employees beyond amounts of worker s comp). iii. Public Private Partnerships (P3) No, have not seen enough to comment Have you written policies for the Alternative Delivery Methods i-iii above and did such policies include Contractor s PLI insurance and/or first party rectification coverage? 3

4 If you answered no, please describe the concerns that prevented coverage. If you answered yes, please indicate whether there were claims and what kind of claims they were. We have written a minor amount of risks with IPD or P3 delivery methods. Yes we included CPL and no we did not include first party rectification coverage, and to date, we have not had any CPL claims on Alternative Delivery projects or traditional delivery projects. However, we have had many pollution claims arising from professional services and generally involving undetected pollutants such as asbestos or lead or polluted soil for example. b. Green/Sustainability issues (including Materials Transparency and the use of Health Product Declarations and Environmental Product Declarations) As more untested means and more experimental materials and products are used for the sake of sustainability, we would expect more claims to develop in the future. To date, we have seen many severe green roof design issues relating to either structural integrity or lack of coordination between green roof specialist engineers and the architects causing water infiltration due building envelope design. c. Technology-related risks (including network security, safety and privacy) Technology and cybersecurity liability will continue to grow in the face of increasing cyber-attacks across the U.S. Design firms will continue to agree to contract terms relating to cybersecurity that they cannot meet without extensive upgrades to their existing technology. Other design firms will blindly accept these requirements and sadly do nothing. The ACEC has published meaningful material in this regard, and it is a great reference guide to its members. Thus far, we have seen a few cyber ransom claims where hackers take over AE firm s server demanding small payments of $2,500 to $7,500 in bit coins. While the ransom payment is not covered, any subsequent project delays, for example, are covered. In all instances, the AE firm paid the ransom, and then had IDT 911 type service scan their systems before beginning to use their servers. Most AE s still do not believe that they actually have any cyber exposures since they typically don t have a great deal of private information on their servers such as social security numbers or client s banking information. Of great concern is that AE s design plans are hacked and used to plan a terrorist attack electrical grid plans, water treatment or supply plans, bridges or dam plans for example. d. Apartment to Condominium conversions The demand for condos varies across the U.S. making conversion risks very regional in nature. In those regions, we expect to see more condo claims especially on those projects being converted from apartments to condos due 4

5 1. Unknowns including those hidden from sight (below ground, in walls and above ceilings). 2. Code compliance/upgrades. 3. Apartment acoustical design standards that do not meet condo owner expectations. 4. Pre-existing design and construction defects. 5. Schedule and budget risks associated with remodels and renovations. 6. Cost cutting at the expense of material and workmanship quality, 7. under-funded HOA associations causing lack of maintenance. For all risks in a. through d., we continue to offer educational/risk management materials to our policyholders to assist them in making educated choices with better solutions and better understanding of the risks they are assuming. See sample Condo Guidelines. 5. Based on your insureds renewal data, please indicate the percentage of construction volume that is delivered under the following: i. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) ii. Design-Build (D/B) iii. Public Private Partnerships (P3) iv. Design-Bid-Build v. Other Hanover does not specifically track this data, but we d estimate that the vast majority is still the traditional design-bid-build but are more frequently seeing D/B projects on K-12 schools and D.O.T. projects as D/B gains public popularity. 6. Given Owners apparent increased efforts to include a duty to defend in design contracts, please indicate your views of the associated risks and whether your policies offer any coverage options for such obligations. One has to look no further than the CH2M Hill case in CA to appreciate the uninsurable risks associated with the duty to defend. See attached Collins, Collins, Muir white paper as well as Hanover s Contract Guide. Our policy does not cover a duty to defend for any party other than the named insured. There is a great difference between a duty to defend prior to negligence being established and reimbursing a client for reasonable attorney fees in settlement of a claim. It would be impossible to underwrite the exposures associated with adding a client as an additional insured or providing an affirmative defense for clients. Hanover suspects such coverage would be commercially unaffordable and no current AE carrier s rates or forms anticipate such exposures. For example, what if the client is in an adversarial position with the insured AE firm and the client is 99% at fault and the insured only 1% at fault. 5

6 This issue also ties into prevailing party legal fees which Hanover does not recommend using. What if the claimed damages were $1,000,000 and the settlement is $10,000; is the claimant really a prevailing party? 7. Please list specific areas of cyber and technology insurance coverage in your E&O policies, including available optional coverage. If you do not provide this coverage, do you plan to provide it in the future? Hanover is currently filing a robust cyber endorsement for an additional premium and expects to begin using in Q1 of Hanover currently offers a free Technology enhancement which provides coverage for unauthorized access resulting in destruction, deletion or corruption of data, and denial of service attacks, or transmission of malicious codes. To avoid the unknowns of claims resulting from Hanover s new, robust cyber coverage impacting the claims experience of AE policyholder s loss ratio, we have purchased reinsurance covering 100% of those exposures. 8. What would you identify as the highlights of your program? (e.g., characteristics distinguishing your company s program from others)? Identify the role that reinsurers play in underwriting your program. Hanover is a domestic, strong, stable, long-term, admitted market offering broad coverage, excellent direct bill payment options, continuing education for A/E s, best in class contract review services and claims handing, and managed by seasoned A&E professionals. Due to our well-established underwriting guidelines, our policyholders are generally insulated from market swings as respects rates for professional liability insurance. Hanover offers all lines of insurance for A/E s including BOP, Package, EPLI, Auto, Umbrella and Crime or Surety needs. Hanover enjoys long-term reinsurance support and currently maintains the first $2,000,000 in limit net topped off with an $8mm xs of $2mm reinsurance treaty. 9. Relative to your policy, a. When was the last time your policy was updated? 12/09; we are in the process of filing an updated policy now and expect to introduce Q1 of b. What would you identify as unique coverages in your policy? Our new form will contain very broad supplemental payments. In addition to our current Disciplinary Proceeding Expense Reimbursement, ADA/FHA/OSHA Expenses, Mediation Deductible Credit and Crisis Event Reimbursement, we have added Remediation Expenses, Dodd-Frank Regulatory Expenses, Past Due Fee Reimbursement, Peer Review Expenses, Nonprofit D&O Expenses, Risk Management Deductible Credits. c. What are your specific and regular exclusions in your policy? The exclusions in our policy form are generally considered to be industry- 6

7 standard and intended to exclude perils insured by other forms of insurance, general liability or worker s comp exposures for example or to be uninsurable. By endorsement, we can exclude a specific entity, professional services or project as appropriate. See copy of current exclusions in policy form. 10. Please provide details about your company s loss prevention program (e.g., number of training sessions annually, contract review, participation in association sessions, etc.) Hanover is an approved AIA continuing education provider and holds monthly and quarterly continuing education webinars depending on state or discipline targeted. We generally sponsor two seminars a month either in partnership with a specific agent or for a specific policyholder. Hanover has many Agent Delivered Seminars and agents present directly to their clients or prospects on a regular basis on behalf of Hanover. Hanover supports local and state AE associations and trade shows by providing risk management materials as guest speakers and having a booth at the event. We send monthly blasts to our agents and policyholders providing real time risk management papers, tips or guides. Hanover offers its policyholders best in class client contract review services by a licensed design professional with more than 30 years of experience (Gary Prather, AE-Dispute Resolution). 11. Please outline your early claims resolution/settlement practices. Hanover is proactive using mostly ADR to settle claims with approximately 95% of claims settled without actual litigation. Our experienced claims staff are all licensed attorneys taking a very hands-on approach to claims handling. In 2016 we hired two more seasoned claims examiners most recently working at XL and Wesco/AmTrust. Outside panel counsel are only used when necessary saving insured s deductible costs and Hanover s defense costs. When a claim or circumstance is reported, we immediately contact the insured to note their concerns, review the facts as described, and develop an action plan whether giving guidance to the insured while staying in the background, meeting claimant s attorney or via mediation and lesser times arbitration. In addition to having quality panel counsel nationally, it is usually Hanover s main goal to assist the insured in maintaining their important client relationship by handling the claim fairly and quickly. 12. What message would you like to send to our respective membership groups (NSPE, ACEC, and AIA) regarding your company and the insurance industry? With the plethora of carriers in the A&E market, not all carriers are alike, and suspect a number of competitors to be a short-term solution since they lack any level of experience or expertise. We hope members find great value in a domestic, 7

8 strong, admitted carrier such as Hanover with solid financials, a long-term commitment to this class and a seasoned appetite insulating its policyholders from the market swings and changes in underwriting philosophies. Hanover has been in business for more than 160 years and has always honored its policyholder obligations during times of war, civil unrest and natural disasters, and we hope to continue doing so for another 160 years! *** 8