Specialty & Niche
Certain exposures do not fit the retail insurance market: values are too high, activities too unusual, jurisdictions too complex, or underwriters too few. These risks require specialist placement, often through international markets or at Lloyd's of London.
OceanMind's specialty practice places cover for clients whose exposures sit outside the standard commercial book: marine, aviation, cyber, professional indemnity, events, and emerging or cross-border risks.
Cover
What this typically covers
Goods and vessels while they are moving. Once cargo leaves your warehouse it is out of reach of every ordinary policy you hold, and it stays that way until somebody signs for it.
Hull, cargo, stock throughput, and marine liability for shipping, logistics, and import/export operations.
Aircraft, the people in them, and the ground they operate from. It reaches drones, which is where most new enquiries now start.
Hull, passenger liability, and ground risks for private aircraft, commercial operators, and drones.
For businesses whose product is software or whose operation is entirely digital. Two exposures in one place: your own systems going down, and a client suing over what your technology did to theirs.
Data breach, ransomware, business interruption, and tech errors & omissions for software and digital businesses.
You were paid for your judgement and the client says the judgement was wrong. This covers defending that and paying it, which matters most in fields where being sued is a normal part of a career.
Claims of negligent advice or service, especially for professionals in high-exposure fields (legal, financial, engineering, medical).
A date, a venue, and money spent before anyone has walked through the door. The cover is for the event not happening: weather, an act that does not arrive, a cancellation nobody could help.
Event cancellation, non-appearance, weather, and public liability for concerts, festivals, and productions.
The project rather than the company. Everything under construction, the plant on site, and the liability that runs alongside both until handover.
Contract works, plant, and liability for major construction and infrastructure projects.
Limits
What this will not cover
This is not a cheaper version of a standard policy
Specialist placement exists because the retail market declines the risk, not because it prices the risk better. Expect a longer underwriting process, more questions, and a premium that reflects a risk nobody else wanted.
Anything already in motion
Underwriters at this end of the market ask what you know, and your answer binds you. A dispute, an incident, or a survey finding that predates the policy stays outside it.
Warranties, and what breaking one costs
Specialist wordings carry conditions precedent: a security standard, a survey, a crew qualification, a maintenance schedule. Breach one and the insurer can decline the whole claim, not only the part it relates to.
Sanctioned trades and territories
International markets apply sanctions clauses, and they override everything else in the policy. Where a shipment, a counterparty or a destination is sanctioned there is no cover, and there is no negotiation.
Claim
When you claim
Notification goes through us, into the right market
Specialist risks are often placed with an international or subscription market rather than a single local insurer, and a notice sent to the wrong desk is a notice that has not been given. We route it and we date it.
A surveyor who knows the class is appointed early
These losses are assessed by someone who understands the exposure: a marine surveyor, an aviation adjuster, a forensic technology consultant. Preserve the site, the equipment and the records until they have seen them.
Settlement can arrive in parts
Where several underwriters each carry a line of the risk, each settles its own share. It is slower than a single-insurer claim, and it is the price of placing a risk the retail market would not write at all.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Composite insurers work to an appetite: values, activities and territories they have priced before. Outside it they decline rather than guess. Specialist and subscription markets exist to price the risks nobody has a table for.
It means individually rated. Sometimes the premium is high because the risk is. Sometimes it is lower than a composite's reluctant quote, because a specialist understands the exposure and is not padding the price for uncertainty.
Longer than a retail quote, because a person is underwriting it. Expect a proper submission, questions coming back, and sometimes a survey. Leaving it to the week before a contract starts is the most reliable way to make a placement go badly.
Often several insurers, each taking a share of the risk, sometimes through an international market. We tell you who carries the paper and in what proportion, because at claim stage that is who you are dealing with.