Insurance and Risk Transfer Mechanisms Training Course

Course overview

Insurance is the risk treatment most organizations rely on and least understand. The policy is bought by procurement, renewed by a broker, and read for the first time on the day of a claim, which is when the exclusion nobody noticed becomes the most important sentence in the document.

This course covers risk transfer across five units: the fundamentals of insurance, corporate insurance programs, alternative risk transfer, integration with enterprise risk management, and where the market is heading. It is educational and is not insurance, legal or financial advice; policy decisions should be taken with qualified brokers and counsel.

What you are actually buying

Not protection from loss. You are buying a contractual promise to indemnify a defined set of losses, subject to a limit, an excess, a set of exclusions, a duty of disclosure you may already have breached, and conditions that can void the cover if you handle the claim badly.

Understanding that changes how the decision is made. The right questions become: what exactly is covered, what is excluded, what is the limit relative to a realistic worst case, what does the policy require of us before and during a loss, and what would happen to the business if the claim were declined.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Read a policy for what it covers and what it quietly excludes.
• Price cover by the controls an underwriter can verify.
• Insure property, liability, cyber and specialty exposures.
• Compare captives, retentions and parametric cover on cost.
• Quantify retained losses and control spending alongside premium.
• Negotiate cover terms into a contract before it is signed.
• Claim under a policy from notification to the disputed clause.
• Renew cyber cover as the exclusions widen each year.

Course outline

Unit 1: Fundamentals of insurance and risk transfer

• Risk pooling and why an insurer will take the exposure.
• Underwriting the premium from exposure and loss history.
• Insurable risk as fortuitous, measurable and not systemic.
• Policy limits, excess, conditions and the insuring clause.

Unit 2: Corporate insurance programs

• Property damage and an indemnity period that is too short.
• Public, product and professional indemnity liability cover.
• Cyber insurance and the conditions attached to the cover.
• Marine, construction, credit and political risk lines.

Unit 3: Alternative risk transfer mechanisms

• Deductibles for frequency and insurance for severity.
• Captives and the capital and governance they demand.
• Parametric cover on an index trigger, with its basis risk.
• Reinsurance and risk finance seen from the corporate buyer.

Unit 4: Integrating risk transfer into ERM

• The choice between paying a premium and funding the loss.
• Total cost of risk: premium, retained losses and controls.
• Indemnities and liability caps in the contract wording.
• A wording that covers less than the risk register assumes.

Unit 5: Future trends in insurance and risk transfer

• Hardening markets, rising exclusions and lost capacity.
• Catastrophe modeling and property cover in exposed regions.
• Cyber war exclusions and the systemic limits of the line.
• Analytics, parametric products and the broker relationship.

How the course is delivered

The course works from real policy wordings, claims disputes, program structures and coverage denials, which participants read and analyze in discussion. Worked examples take a loss scenario through the policy to establish what would actually be paid. The course is educational and is not insurance, legal or financial advice; it does not certify participants, and cover decisions should be taken with qualified brokers and counsel. Participants who want the wider risk framework should look at Enterprise Risk Management Strategies.

Who should attend

• Risk managers and insurance buyers in corporate organizations.
• Finance and treasury professionals responsible for total cost of risk.
• Legal, procurement and contract managers dealing with insurance requirements.
• Internal auditors and executives reviewing insurance arrangements.

About EuroQuest International Training

EuroQuest International Training was founded in 2015 by a team with more than 25 years of experience in professional development. We deliver over 1,000 courses and have trained more than 15,000 participants, from our head office in Bratislava, Slovakia, with hubs in Dubai, London, Barcelona, Istanbul, Vienna, Paris and Geneva. Courses are developed and reviewed by practitioners from the fields they teach.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an insurance background?

No. The course is built for the buyer's side: risk, finance and legal professionals who purchase cover and live with the consequences, not for insurance professionals selling it.

Will the course tell me how much cover to buy?

No. It is educational and is not insurance or financial advice. It gives you the analysis to make that decision and to challenge a broker's recommendation, but the decision remains yours with qualified advice.

Does the course cover a specific insurance market?

It uses international market practice and standard wordings, noting where local markets and regulation differ materially.

Related courses

• Operational Risk Management in Large Enterprises
• Business Risk Assessment and Management Frameworks
• Contractual Risk Analysis and Mitigation
• Strategic Risk Planning and Business Continuity

Register for this course

Choose a city and date from the schedule above to register, or contact EuroQuest about in-house delivery for a risk or finance team.