Christian Chivaroli is the chief executive and president of Chivaroli & Associates Insurance Services. The firm’s forte is providing insurance solutions for health care. “With 100% of our resources dedicated to the health care industry, we have a deep understanding of the operations and challenges faced by all participants throughout the continuum of care from health systems to individual practitioners,” the firm’s website proclaims.
How long have you worked in the insurance industry, and what did you do before working at your current firm?
I joined our family-run company as a full-time employee after graduating law school nearly 20 years ago, but have been involved in the organization since we opened our doors in 1993.
Tell me about your role at your firm. What are your main responsibilities?
We are a full-service insurance brokerage and risk-management consulting firm specializing in property and casualty insurance for the health care industry. As president, I am responsible for managing the service and placement of more than $100 million in premiums placed in more than 35 states.
What is one of the most important professional lessons you’ve learned from your time in the industry?
Maintaining one’s reputation for professionalism and integrity is of utmost importance to our success. Horror stories abound about insurance agents not acting in their clients’ best interests. Once that reputation is tarnished it can never be restored. We, as insurance professionals, cannot lose sight of our role and duties to our cherished clients and hold ourselves to the highest standards.
What do people get wrong about the insurance industry?
Delivering the highest level of client service is a 365-day-a-year job. Young brokers can get lost chasing new business to the detriment of their existing clients. Priority number one must be the clients we know and love.
What is a trend in the insurance industry that more people should be paying attention to? Why is it important?
The commercial insurance marketplace has become increasingly dynamic. It seems each week brings a paradigm shift from hard to soft market cycles (or vice versa), individual underwriter appetites, and available insurance carriers willing to write a certain class of business. Instability seems to be the new normal but is detrimental to our clients’ budgets. Our task is to provide the right underwriters with the right risks and structure insurance programs at the appropriate attachment points with sustainable premiums to help build stability in an otherwise unstable world.
How can an insurance firm best empower their employees?
As a company that is driven to provide the best possible client service, we work hard to develop the appropriate company culture where our employees are given meaningful responsibilities and the ability to have a “voice” with our clients, insurance markets, other employees, management, and vendors. As service providers, our “stock in trade” is not an insurance policy but actually ourselves as people and professionals.
What are some notable trends regarding one of your firm’s insurance specializations?
In the health care industry, claims arising from malpractice, cyber, management liability (to name just a few) have become increasingly severe, with settlements and verdicts regularly in the eight-figure range. While the possible reasons for the increase in severity abound, the simple reality is that certain exposures are becoming near uninsurable. As brokers, we are increasingly being asked to develop creative alternative risk-management solutions to meet our clients’ risk needs.
What is next for your firm?
We are very excited about our developing capabilities in data analytics. As our databases have grown over the years, we have been able to find ways to utilize that data to run predictive claim modeling, actuarial loss development, and insurance program benchmarking analysis. Turning vast amounts of data into a meaningful and useful tool is very powerful and exciting.
