The Gap We Closed With a Phone Call

A fast-growing medical staffing and telehealth company came to me with a program built the usual way: coverage accumulated across several carriers over the years, complete on paper, never read as a whole. Two problems stood out immediately. The program was overpriced, with the professional liability alone costing well above market for the risk. And when I checked the policies against the company’s client contracts, the coverage didn’t match what the contracts required.

The biggest miss: a county mental-health contract required $2 million per claim of sexual abuse and molestation coverage (SAM), a standard requirement in healthcare staffing. The best available package topped out at $1 million per claim. Technically, the company was out of compliance with its own client contract.

The standard fix is an expensive standalone SAM policy, and I lined one up as a backstop. But I also did something simpler: went back to the county to confirm the requirement. It turned out they had lowered it to $1 million months earlier. The package satisfied the contract in full, confirmed in writing. Legwork, not premium.

While we were in there, we closed the rest: cyber liability and cyber crime added to the program, a Directors & Officers policy the company had never carried, and a fragmented multi-carrier program consolidated into one coordinated package. The result was roughly $10,900 in annual savings on the professional liability alone, with more coverage than the company had before.

A cheaper renewal is easy. A cheaper renewal that also closes contract-compliance gaps requires reading the fine print on both sides: the policies, and the contracts they’re supposed to satisfy.