Community Associations
Jim Cirillo
Community Association Division Director
Grant Connor Mehlich
Founder
Risk Management
Risk Management Services are often the most overlooked aspect of any association’s insurance program. A well-developed risk management plan is vital to the healthy operations of any Community Association. Our various risk management services also assist in the yearly “marketing” of your insurance program to all carriers, ensuring the best pricing, coverages, deductibles, and terms in your policies. Our agents are working for you 365-a-year.
When you hire GCM as your Insurance Broker and Risk Management agency, you receive all of these services;
A Loss Control Survey is a detailed inspection to help identify and better manage risks that could potentially cause losses. By correcting potential hazards ahead of time, we can reduce the severity of loss that occurs, or prevent it altogether. This proactive risk management makes an organization more attractive to underwriters while ensuring the association’s loss history remains in good standing.
These customized plans are crucial to assisting an association during and after small and large losses. These programs set up a “plan of action” after the loss occurs so that any association and their partner vendors can move quickly and efficiently post-loss to repair the loss to a pre-loss state at a more rapid pace. Customized Disaster Plan & Emergency Response Plans also provide a host of pre-determined vendors to ensure your association receives priority treatment after a loss has occurred.
A Hurricane Site survey works in conjunction with the aerial drone site survey to identify potential hazards that could negatively affect the association in the case of an impending hurricane. For example, we could help identify a large oak tree with overhanging branches that may threaten a residential building. We could also determine that the same oak tree has very shallow roots or parts are diseased, making it more susceptible to fall over in heavy winds and rain. Identifying these types of hazards pre-loss allows us to pre-mitigate a loss and take proactive action before the loss has a chance to occur.
The Reserve Study is the most under-utilized tool by Insurance Brokers in the industry. A good reserve study updated once every three years is more crucial to showing that an association is pro-active and plans out major items to be serviced and/or replaced than any other document that an association can possess. An adequately updated reserve study ensures that the association is financially solvent and healthy and can repair and replace significant building items when necessary. By showing a reserve study schedule and proper funding of those reserve study items, your association becomes infinitely more attractive to various insurance carriers.
At GCM Insurance & Risk Management, we also develop Safety Workshops, which are valuable educational tools for Boards of Directors, Property Managers, and Unit Owners.
Like all tax-paying Citizens, we are entitled to our local county municipalities’ services. GCM offers free representation by our local County Emergency Response Manager and Director. GCM will assist our Association Clients in having the local government representative speak in person at your association, providing further education and preparation for the catastrophes that impact the state of Florida.
Education & Seminars
Monthly Education Seminars for Board Members & Property Managers: GCM has founded and co-sponsored several local Lunch and Learns & Continuing Education Programs for community associations. Once a month, a new guest speaker provides an hour-long presentation on topics relevant to the specific community. Full lunch and refreshments are provided at each event.
Quarterly Expert Panel Discussions on Community Association Topics: Once a quarter, GCM co-hosts and co-sponsors, “Panel Discussions,” during which a moderator fields audience questions to a panel of industry experts. The experts address questions, debate amongst themselves, and respond live and in person. We have found this to be a very valuable educational piece, especially to gather insight into hypothetical scenarios from our audience.
Continuing Education Classes (C.E.): Property Managers will earn an hour of C.E. for every monthly seminar or free class they attend hosted by GCM or our co-sponsors.
Unit Owner University:
Unit Owner University is a customized PowerPoint presentation developed over 5+ years to educate Condominium Unit Owners. It details FL Statute 718, which governs all condominiums in the state, and HO-6 Unit Owners Policy, insurance required by all unit owners in addition to the Association’s Master Policies.
GCM will thoroughly review the specifics of the HO-6 policy to determine which personal policies unit owners should have for proper protection.
Expert Analysis & Review
Full Policy Audit & Risk Analysis of Current Insurance & Risk Management Program: A full Policy Audit & Review of your current program is vital to identifying your current set of policies and services as well as areas where your association may have coverage gaps, holes, or deficient policy language.
We perform our Policy Audits & Risk Analyses free of charge. Even after our report has been provided to you, there is never any obligation to do business with GCM Insurance. Our objective is to assist your association in obtaining the best Insurance & Risk Management Program available in the marketplace, even if that is not with our agency.
Detailed Expert Budget Forecasts & State of the Market Updates: Budgeting time can be a chore for any association. Not only does GCM provide a detailed Budget Forecast & State of Market Analysis each year. We will work with your property management company and board of directors to ensure that we have budgeted for the next year’s premiums, all while educating your association with a market synopsis and projection.
Claims Analysis of Loss History: All new clients will receive a thorough Claims Analysis of their Loss Runs and Loss History. Analyzing existing loss runs and loss history can help to identify inaccuracies and/or mitigate losses that previously affected your rate. For example, if an association has had a history of water losses that negatively affected their premium, but has since had all of their cast iron stacks replaced or re-lined, that data can be used to renegotiate terms with the carrier.
Case Studies:Detailed examples of current clients showing how we have improved their Insurance & Risk Management programs
Insurance Placement & Market Relations
Access to ALL of the available carrier markets that specialize in Community Associations: GCM Insurance has a decade-long history with all carriers that write community associations in Florida. As a GCM client, your association will be shopped each and every year to all of the available carriers in the Florida marketplace.
Longstanding Trusted Relationships: At GCM, our entire team has personal and professional relationships with our carriers, underwriters, marketing managers, claims division units, and vendors, ensuring we are always providing the best of what is available.
Customized Insurance Policies: At GCM, we never simply take what’s offered by insurance carriers. We customize your coverage, negotiate policy language to better benefit our clients, negotiate valuable endorsements into the policy, and work to remove damaging exclusions often found in base policies. However similar two policies may appear on their surface, the policy terms, conditions, and subjectivities we negotiate for our clients are anything but standard.
