Jim Dunlop: Yeah, I think that's that's a fair way of saying it. If we start specifically first with with worker's compensation, worker's compensation continues to be in the United States, essentially a very profitable and attractive line of business for insurance carrier partners and an area where we're able to negotiate really excellent terms, generally in terms of conditions for our clients. Now, that's that's kind of the good news. On the more challenging side are the liability sides, whether it's the automobile, the general liability or or excess liability on top of that. Yeah. So we're we're seeing some pretty significant rate increases. Mostly in auto and in excess. And that we've driven in the United States by a lot of the things that we talk about, like litigation and, and large claims costs to many of our clients and carriers are suffering and suffering from and therefore, there's a need for additional, additional rate puts a lot of pressure on the on the right. So, in that in that excess market, we're generally seeing 10 to 15%, sometimes even higher, rate increases. And one of the comments that I like to make when we talk about that is in the United States is a lot of the, the, the rate pressure is geographically based. You know, where where different states, different areas of the country have significantly more challenging, judicial environments which drive up those claims costs. The carriers themselves now are looking for, higher rates in some areas of the country specifically, often around the southeast, in Texas, know a little bit of California. I made a comment earlier that, you know, to insure a truck in Florida is significantly more expensive than to insure that same truck in Iowa simply because of the geography.
Trent Williams: Yeah. You raised a I mean, some great points there. One of the points I wanted to hit on that you you touched on earlier was, contractors and I guess the competitive nature of their businesses at the moment. So they're looking at branching into to different areas that they may not have been building before. So it might be that they're a high-rise builder. They're looking at doing more commercial. I mean, are you seeing more sort of risk exposure starting to change for contractors?
Jim Dunlop: You know, what we're what we're seeing is on are really large commercial builders. They have a broad portfolio of what they tend to construct. Anyway, it's just not as much of a challenge there, but it's where maybe are maybe more of a mid-sized contractors looking to to branch out and and go from that's a pure commercial building into residential or apartments. And that's a significantly different risk profile, from, from the insurance companies’ standpoint. So we're seeing we’re seeing a little bit of that. We're also seeing, some of our maybe, you know, street and road and infrastructure folks beginning to do more, more tunnelling, more, bridge work. And just by the nature of bridge work, you've got, you've got significantly different exposures. So we're seeing a little bit of that and, and my only ask for, for the benefit our cost is make sure that you're engaging with, with us as the broker to make sure we're getting the story out and the proper information. The insurance companies. Yeah.
Trent Williams: I mean, that's we'll touch on how, I guess clients can separate themselves from risks going into the market from all different angles at the moment, the competitive nature of of everyone trying to separate themselves as far as how clients can can get to market early. You comment around incumbency I thought was really important, as well as making sure that they're the most serious competition out there. The relationships are really important and going through those different market cycles with incumbents. Maybe talk to me a bit.
Jim Dunlop - About yeah, I think that's that's a really that's a really valid point. The there is there is a significant value to the partnership that our clients maintain with their insurance companies. And if it's a if it's a good risk profile in a, in a performing contractor. The current the current relationship with a carrier that they're going to want to maintain that in as is prices of the casualty to continue to escalate. It's really those long term relationships we're able to even in and mitigate some of that increase simply because there's maybe the insurance company has a little bit money in the bank because they've been they've been the carrier for for several. So, several years. It is a strategy to market the account. You know, you want to bring in competition when what it's what it's necessary or needed. But our data would show that really only 1 in 4 accounts that we actively market will will move on their primary casualty. So there is a lot of power of that question. Power incumbency. Yeah. Because the carriers want to keep good business.
Trent Williams: Yeah. Yeah. And understanding that means that there is that management that needs to happen over the years and years to come. Did just finally on casualty I think the last had one really hot market cycle was the where the excess capacity dried up and dried up pretty rapidly. You're seeing that in most part return.
Jim Dunlop - So I would say that we in in the construction space, we don't have a lack of capacity. But what we're seeing for what we're seeing is the insurance companies themselves are being very careful to to mitigate and look at their deployment of overall limits. So where they used to provide, let's say a $25 million a barrel, there's those those days are pretty much gone. So the 25 now they're dropping to 15 or 10, which really requires us to bring more insurance companies, into the fold to, to fill out the overall overall power, in and of itself. And that often brings in an additional transaction cost, because each insurance company brings their need for profit overhead and claims expense. So the more carriers you have, the more essentially expense you have built into the tower.
Trent Williams: Yeah. Okay. As we move from casualty to builder's risk, you'll be able to tell you gave a really good presentation. But I guess one of the things that that's quite interesting to me was that sort of number of sort of circa 27 events that have led to over $1 billion losses, like huge, huge events. And then you drill down a bit further. Convective storm is is a huge part of that. I again, you sort of feel for market conditions on builds risk.
Jim Dunlop: Yeah. What we're seeing now is that, did the market in and of itself, even with those losses that are mentioned, have really pretty much stabilized. So we're able to obtain, decent rates? I wouldn't, I wouldn't say rate reductions. Well, it's a flat to maybe a little bit of overall, some minor increase in, because the, the, the hard market over the last several years essentially has brought in more premium into the marketplace. So the carriers themselves have done reasonably well in builder's risk. And then also when, when you have significant losses and a lot of risk mitigation techniques come to fall, whether it's water intrusion techniques or flows or even risk of a degree, which makes for bigger, better risks and fewer losses, that over time makes, you know, puts downward pressure on rates.
Trent Williams: Yeah. And again, similar question on the on the casualties. How can clients in that space really separate themselves with so much new risk going to market.
Jim Dunlop: Yeah, I think the best way of explaining that is, is, you know, working very closely with both your insurance company and with your insurance broker to provide, you know, the really the world class risk engineering that's available, whether it's, it's whether it's telematics, whether it's safety programs where there's quality control. And those are the pieces that now are almost, what I would say, table stakes. When you present a risk to the marketplace that, you know, our carriers want to see these types of things in place, or in many cases, they won't be interested in quoting the risk. So these are the types of things that really a client can differentiate and differentiate themselves through their own risk profiles and their risk protocols.
Trent Williams: Yeah. And I guess our advice as brokers with our analytical tool suite that we have as well, can, can really help them separate, particularly around geography and perils.
Jim Dunlop: Yep.
Trent Williams: Yeah. And finally, construction professional liability. Was that the final presentation today? Again, a fascinating sort of insight into where that, that, product sits at the moment. If you, if you got some sort of remarks.
Jim Dunlop: Yeah. The the best advice I can give about the professional liability is that our folks would say that the marketplace is stable. Yeah, there's ample capacity. There's the rates are reasonably the recent reasonably flat to to mid minor increases just based on, on marketplace or inflation itself. But it's not being driven by those losses. It's not being driven by underperforming you know, for contractors so that that's, that's a highlight of our of all the lines of business that we work under. The professional liability seems to be the most stable that.
Trent Williams: That's the part that's got stability. And I guess there's differing levels of, of right movement at sort of across all the products of construction at the moment. I think that's a fascinating way of, of North America heading into the tail end of this year. And what we're looking at for next year. Is there anything you're forecasting for 2026 as you sort of look ahead?
Jim Dunlop: I guess I would answer that by saying that we the comments of earlier to kind of predict or look into 2026, we don't anticipate any really significant changes or challenges independent of some type of unexpected, catastrophic loss. But we've we've gone through catastrophic losses before. And the insurance marketplace is very resilient and is able to very often do that. So as we move in towards the tail end of 25 into 2026, we would anticipate that the marketplace is going to be remain very similar to where we are. Yeah, great.
Trent Williams: Great insights. Great panel today. Thanks for your time. And good. You're in Nashville. Thank you. Matt.
