How to Run a PI Broker Review Without Disrupting Your Cover
Firms put off reviewing their PI broker for one dominant reason: fear of disruption. The programme works, claims get paid, and nobody wants to be the finance director who destabilised the firm’s most important policy to save a service irritation. The fear is understandable and, with a properly run process, unfounded. Cover sits with insurers, not brokers; reviewing the intermediary does not touch the policy. What can cause damage is a badly run review — started too late, run through too many brokers, briefed on too little information. Here is how to run a good one.
Timing: work back from renewal
The review should conclude months before renewal, not weeks. A substantial programme takes time to remarket properly — submissions prepared, underwriters met, layers negotiated — and an incoming broker given a fortnight can only recycle what exists. Working backwards: decide the outcome with roughly a quarter of the year still to run before renewal, which means starting the review shortly after the previous renewal settles or at the latest around the policy’s midpoint. Counter-intuitively, just after renewal is an excellent moment to begin: no deadline pressure, a full year of runway, and everyone’s memory of the last renewal still fresh. If renewal is now imminent, renew first and review afterwards — and remember that switching broker mid-year is possible if the conclusion is clear before the cycle comes round again.
Assemble the documents first
A review is only as good as the information it runs on. Before speaking to anyone, assemble: the full policy wordings and schedules for every layer, not just the primary; the last proposal form or presentation submitted to market; claims and circumstance history over a sensible period, with current reserves; a summary of the contract book’s indemnity requirements; and any subjectivities, endorsements or warranties applied at the last renewal. Two benefits follow. Candidate brokers give you analysis instead of generalities, and the exercise itself often surfaces the first findings — it is common for the assembly stage to reveal that nobody in the firm holds a complete, current set of the tower’s wordings.
Full market exercise or targeted second opinion?
Decide which of two different exercises you are running. A full market exercise re-broks the programme: a fresh submission taken to the whole relevant market, with the incumbent competing alongside challengers. It is thorough, and it is also heavy — for the firm, and for the market’s patience if repeated too often. A targeted second opinion is lighter: one candidate broker reviews the existing programme — structure, wordings, aggregation, retroactive continuity, presentation — and reports on what is sound and what is not, without approaching insurers at all. Many firms should start with the second. It answers the real question — is our programme well built and well bought? — without spending market goodwill, and it can always escalate to a full exercise if the findings justify one.
Why more brokers can mean worse results
The instinct to invite several brokers to “see what they can do” is the single most damaging mistake in this process. The PI market for any given profession is finite, and underwriters will generally engage with only one presentation of a given risk. When multiple brokers approach the same insurers with the same firm, underwriters see a risk being shopped, each broker blocks the others at whichever markets it reaches first, and the firm’s risk ends up presented by whoever arrived earliest rather than whoever would present it best — often in fragments, sometimes carelessly. The result is a flooded, blocked market and a weaker outcome than one broker acting alone would have achieved. The professional solution is to run the competition on paper: select the broker first, through interviews and a documented review, and only then let the chosen firm approach the market with a single, controlled submission.
The broker-of-record mechanism
Appointing a new broker uses a standard instrument: a letter from the firm to insurers recording that, from a stated date, the named broker represents it on the programme. The mechanism transfers representation, not cover — the policy, its terms and its continuity are untouched. Letters normally allow a short period before taking effect, during which the incumbent is told of the change and hands over the file. It is worth knowing two things: the mechanism is routine and insurers process it without drama; and it deserves deliberate use rather than casual signature, because whoever holds the appointment controls how your risk reaches the market.
What to ask each candidate
Interview candidates against the same structured questions: who, by name, will handle the account day to day and at claim time; how many programmes like yours the team places; how they would approach your market and in what order; what they found in your documents that others missed; and how they are remunerated, in full. We keep a fuller list — eight questions to ask any PI broker — which works as an agenda for these interviews, including the ones where the candidate is us. Score the answers, check the references, and pick one.
Frequently asked questions
Will our incumbent broker retaliate or let service slip if they learn we are reviewing?
A professional incumbent will treat a review as normal governance, and most do — being reviewed is part of the job. You are under no obligation to announce a paper-based review, though many firms choose to tell the incumbent and invite them to compete, which is both fair and often clarifying. Cover itself cannot be withdrawn because the client asked questions.
Does a second opinion mean approaching insurers behind our broker’s back?
No — and it should not. A properly run second opinion is a documents exercise: structure, wordings and presentation reviewed without any market approach. Insurers are only ever approached later, once, by whichever broker holds the appointment.
How long does the whole process take?
A targeted second opinion on a well-documented programme is typically a matter of weeks from documents to findings. A full market exercise runs on the renewal timetable and needs the months of runway described above. Every risk is different: the more layers and the more history, the more time the work deserves.
If you are weighing any of this up, the easiest next step is a director’s second opinion on your programme — a structured review of what you buy, how it is layered and how it is presented to insurers, with no obligation attached. Or simply call us on 0117 325 0027 and speak to a director.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 724952). Every risk is different: nothing on this page is advice on your own programme, and outcomes depend on your firm’s circumstances and the market at the time.