Sponsored by Echelon Insurance

How Echelon is responding to the evolving needs of one of the hardest-hit industries in 2020/21 – hospitality.

Why hospitality? Why now?

Supporting our communities and the small businesses that make them great has always been part of Echelon’s core values, and is especially important to us as our communities continue to navigate the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. As other insurance companies are stepping away from the hospitality industry, our goal is to combine our care for our communities with our specialized underwriting expertise to ensure small and mid-sized hospitality businesses have the coverage solutions they need as they face a unique set of challenges.

Where and how we can help

With the support and expertise of our broker network, Echelon has provided insurance for businesses in the hospitality space for over 5 years. During this time, we’ve insured restaurants, hotels and motels, banquet halls, and select pubs, bars, and lounges. We know these risks well, but that isn’t to say we won’t service hospitality businesses beyond these key occupancies. Our approach to underwriting is rooted in our belief that no two businesses are the same. We work with our trusted broker partners to evaluate businesses on a case-by-case basis in order to try and find the right solutions. We take the time to understand what makes each business unique, and gain a clear understanding of the risk we’re insuring so that we can offer coverage to businesses with fewer choices at a fair and appropriate price.

Data-driven decision making is a key pillar in our approach to business, and servicing the hospitality market is no exception. Our commercial underwriting and actuarial teams collaborate closely to analyze the unique classes of business that we write to form a strong baseline. Our broker partners also lend support by helping us to understand what might make a particular risk more or less susceptible to loss.

Loss control is a crucial part of insurance, both before and after a policy is bound. When analyzing a new risk, we begin by reviewing their loss history and their past and present loss prevention protocols. We use a system of debit and credit, where favourable, preventative behaviours are recognized with credits, and loss exposures with debits. We rely on the trusted expertise of our internal Technical Risk Services team, along with the unmatched input of our broker partners, and keep an eye out for trends across the industry so we’re able to be proactive in our approach. For example, we’re currently seeing an increase in water damage claims within the hospitality industry. In an effort to combat this, we’re placing a strong focus on assessing exposure which can cause water damage when recommending risk mitigation measures to these types of risks. 

By combining our underwriting expertise with data and a commitment to loss prevention, we’ve seen success in the hospitality industry, and other niche commercial segments that other insurers have shied away from.

Building specialty to serve our communities, starting but not ending with hospitality

The hospitality industry is not new to Echelon, and we look forward to catering to unique risks as we expand our hospitality offering to support even more Canadian businesses. We will continue to work with our brokers to help return the hospitality industry to a state of stability.

Echelon is committed to responding to the unique, unmet insurance needs of businesses and families across Canada. We are committed to meeting specialty insurance needs with tailored solutions, rather than competing with larger markets on cookie-cutter risks.

Get in touch with us to learn more about how Echelon can help your hospitality and other niche small to mid-sized commercial clients!