In another some-what recent development, one of the major insurance providers announced an agreement with International Catastrophe Insurance Managers to provide a market for property and wind coverage in high-risk coastal areas. This may provide long-sought relief for self-storage operators in the Southeast and Gulf Coast areas who have found it increasingly difficult to place insurance for their properties.
Hazardous Contents
Concerns about the cost of cleanup and disposal of hazardous contents found in storage and the liability that may result from contamination to property or person are not new to the industry. However, a new program to deal with these concerns, addressing the exposures left uninsured by specific pollution exclusions common to most property and general liability insurance policies, was introduced by one of the main self-storage insurance markets early last year.
Uninsured Property
Storage facility operators have long been aware of the problems that arise from loss or damage to uninsured property stored by their customers. Insurance products that make property coverage available to tenants through a mail-in brochure available at the storage facility or sold by the operator and paid on a monthly basis with rent have been around for many years. However, it has only been a few years since several insurance markets have created the ability for customers to purchase insurance online, sometimes through a link to the storage facility’s own website.
Another new option allows the owner to transfer limited liability for stored property, accepted through their rental agreement, to their insurance company. This last option has opened up new possibilities for unit rental pricing in a competitive market and a new service to offer their customers.
Cost of Relationships
Insurance is a very different kind of product than a management-software program, but the business considerations that go into which product to buy and when to make a change have a lot in common. Whether you are looking at an insurance program or a software program, along with the price of the product you will want to give a lot of consideration to the people and the company you are purchasing from and the service they are prepared to provide.
When you purchase a product or a service that requires an understanding of your business needs and relies upon professional or expert advice, the people and businesses you choose to work with are very important. Most independent insurance agents and companies can insure a self-storage operation, but they may not be familiar with your business or know how to respond to some of the unique risks and claims that result from self-storage operations. This may be particularly true of local insurance firms if you operate in a rural area where agents and the companies they represent must often become jacks-of-all-trades but masters of none.
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