This month, we invite you to meet our new Chief Liability Underwriter, Andreea Tigau.
She joined the CertAsig team in June 2016 as Senior Liability Underwriter, after more than 10 years of experience in the insurance industry, in companies such as Omniasig, Axa and Uniqa. Dynamic, vibrant and full of energy, with a background in economy and law (her favourite reading material is the Official Monitor, by the way), Andreea became our new head of the Liability Underwriting department in September 2017.
“I’m very excited to take on this role. Over the past year, I have been able to contribute to strengthening CertAsig’s position on the market in regard to liability policies, and to promoting the products themselves and our unique approach to the market.
As we are specialized in corporate insurance, we never sell the same product twice – it’s always a case of finding the best balance between each client’s needs, the risks we estimate in each particular case, and the specific, customised solutions we ultimately propose to each client.
A lot of people ask me what we cover under the large umbrella of Liability – there’s general and professional liability, including D&O ; it all sounds easy and simple enough, but for each client, in each industry or activity, these generic terms can take unexpected twists.
For instance, this summer we’ve had a significant increase in the interest towards events insurance. CertAsig is the strongest insurer on this niche, so we insure quite a lot of public events, concerts, shows etc.
We’re proud to have insured the biggest events of the summer:
- the Depeche Mode concert in Cluj in July, the most talked about event of the year, flooding social media accounts all over the Romanian internet;
- Europa FM’s annual “Live on the Beach” concert also in July– over 100.000 people attended this amazing 3 day event held in the Black Sea resort Venus-Saturn;
- or, less known by the young and restless but very familiar to any Romanian parent of young children – the tour of Gasca Zurli – a Romanian singing, dancing and acting phenomenon whose events attracted tens of thousands of excited small children and parents in cities all over Romania…
Increasingly, companies whose business involves any interactions with children – like playgrounds, children events or competitions, private daycare centers etc, are actively seeking liability insurance. It’s a good sign, this means that the business environment is becoming more responsible and mature.
An unexpected effect of insuring events for general and civil liability? I am now unable to attend any show or concert or see a stage of any kind without doing a mental sweep of whether safety regulations are observed. Like most of my colleagues, I tend to evaluate everything in terms of potential risks.
Then there is the area of professional liability. We are starting to see increasing requests to insure atypical professional liabilities, from managers and specialists in industries which are not in traditional liberal professions. We welcome these challenges, and thanks to our experience we are able to provide special solutions for our clients’ special risks.
Another area of high importance in our activity is civil liability insurance for engineering projects such as commercial or industrial building sites, public utilities projects or infrastructure rehabilitation works. Managers and company owners in the construction sector are increasingly aware of the importance of their liability toward third parties or toward their own employees, and legal compliance and regulations are also a factor.
I’m very proud of the fact that we succeed in developing solid relationships with the brokers and the clients, who can depend on us for more than just a price quote. We provide more complex solutions where they are needed – when clients sometimes are unsure of what might be necessary in their particular case, we advise them on what we consider appropriate cover for their specific industries and companies. We see insurance as a service that brings added value to the business, not just a commodity that companies buy in order to meet compliance criteria.
One last thing that I would like to say in this interview, but not least – we welcome special challenges and we value the opportunity to find solutions to best insure our clients. This is particularly fruitful for those clients with whom we develop a history of collaboration – the more we work together, the better we know and understand each business and its specific needs and risks and the better we are able to propose adequate cover at adequate premiums.
The world in which we all live and conduct our businesses is increasingly unpredictable and volatile. We help prevent some, or most of, the potential financial consequences. For premiums which do not break the bank, clients who are adequately insured are able to foresee and forestall serious financial consequences like insolvency or bankruptcy.
by Cristina Hlinschi – PR and Communication Consultant