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Vice President
Rekerdres & Sons, Dallas

Mitigating the Risks

Whether it's analyzing reasons that coffee beans spoil during shipping or protecting trucks from thieves, Brett Anderhub, vice president-coffee at Rekerdres & Sons in Dallas, helps his clients mitigate the risks. And he travels to some distant locations to do so, said Teddy Esteve, director of coffee operations at Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. in Mexico City, who noted that Anderhub was recently in Vietnam carrying out trials on different methods of shipping and storage.

He did the same on the Ivory Coast, Esteve said, where Ecom was having recurring claims for spoiled cocoa beans because of excess humidity.

Analyzing the results of using different containers, different meters used to track humidity, and different linings and absorbing bags were all part of Anderhub's systematic suggestions to try to reduce losses, said Esteve.

Anderhub also works on condensation issues with another commodities company, said one of its executives.

With Anderhub's assistance, the company is researching whether the "very innovative" storage and shipping changes will have a positive cost benefit for the company, he said.

"He is always checking on us. If he doesn't hear from us, he won't take it as 'no news is good news.' He will check on us," the executive said.

When it comes to truck transportation, Anderhub was very helpful in partnering with Ecom to find a solution, including organizing convoys and tracking systems, Esteve said.

President
LIG Marine Managers Inc., St. Petersburg, Fla.

Tracking the Claims

The O'Hara Corp. needed more control over its losses, so Ian Greenway designed an online claims database system that allowed the company to track every fishing boat it owned, including names of the captains, incidents and times of year claims occurred.

That has allowed the company to "see where the problems are," said Frank O'Hara Jr., vice president of the company, which also benefits from Greenway's ability to access the Lloyd's syndicates. "He's been able to move our program around to help us both with premiums and with reducing exposure," O'Hara said.

Many brokers are only interested in their commission, he said. "That's not the driving force for Ian. It's the relationship and working together and making sure there are no gaps in the coverage."

For one high-risk account with stock in flood zones and a previous inability to secure excess flood coverage, Greenway, president of LIG Marine Managers Inc., was able to devise a stock throughput solution that included cargo, property, excess flood and earthquake coverage at a price similar to the organization's existing program that did not include excess flood.

"He is an authority in the marine industry," said David Aman, controller at Jamestown Metal Marine Sales Inc., a marine interior outfitter. "Ian does a phenomenal job.

"In the last eight months, Jamestown has had an ongoing situation that has resulted in a lot of sweat and blood that Ian has worked with us on," he said.

Senior Vice President
Marsh, Portland, Ore.

Starting from Scratch

When courts ruled that some employees of the Port of Portland were entitled to coverage under the Jones Act as well as to state workers' compensation benefits under a bargaining agreement, most of the insurance market was hesitant to provide coverage, said Andrea Marzette, risk manager for the port.

"It took the insurance community time to get their arms around what the real monetary exposures were in our situation," she said, noting that Marsh USA Inc. Senior Vice President Janice Kowell "did a great job educating the markets and bringing the port and a carrier together to negotiate and develop coverage as well as a claims process tailored to fit our unique situation."

The exposures affecting a start-up company are a bit uncertain as well, said Lou Santore, managing director of global oil operations at Freepoint Commodities in Stamford, Conn.

"It takes a lot of legwork and a lot of plain, old-fashioned hard work reviewing contracts, looking at the risk that is involved and trying to come up with solutions to mitigate the risks," he said.

"Janice has done a stellar job in helping us get the insurance coverage we need and, I think, at a competitive price.

"She understands the commodities business really well and that's what makes her very effective," Santore said. He said that Kowell has "an extraordinary talent" to bring people and various available resources together to come up with needed solutions.

President
Rekerdres & Sons, Dallas

A Leading Authority

Ted Rekerdres is the "leading force within the industry" in identifying and devising ways to effectively mitigate the storage and shipping risks of commodities trading.

So says Andrew Halle, Dallas-based CEO of Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. Ltd., a global commodities company that has "semi-outsourced with Ted a lot of the risk management activities and methods of handling cargo in order to improve our insurance record."

Long concerned about the extensive mold and condensation losses in cocoa, Rekerdres, president of Rekerdres & Sons Insurance Agency Inc., a third-generation brokerage, has been researching various ways to prevent those losses, beginning with standardizing preparation of the raw beans and packaging them in containers of various materials for shipments on varying routes.

After two years of trials, his key solution of using desiccant innovator Nordic Dry reduced losses by 50 percent.

His technique has become a best practice for the industry now, Halle said, noting that Rekerdres' work "goes above and beyond" what would ordinarily be expected from a broker.

Sylvie Mani, a logistics manager with Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. in Switzerland, says the new set of procedures have resulted in "significant improvement between the last season and the one before that" in the amount of damage to the cocoa. And when there are claims, the company -- which has a "very user friendly" website -- is extremely responsive, she said.

Senior Vice President
Marsh, Houston

Navigating Difficult Waters

Safely sending oil and gas equipment to Iraq was challenging enough without having to deal with an insurer insisting on specialized reporting procedures, said Tony Black, director of risk management at Cameron International Corp.

But Ali Rizvi, senior vice president at Marsh USA Inc. in Houston, was able to "put together a new program in London that was able to solve some problems that we were having" with shipments to Iraq and other "difficult areas of the world" served by Cameron, which manufactures equipment that supports the oil and gas industry, Black said.

Not only was the new underwriter amenable to a program "broad enough to handle things automatically without keeping track of every shipment we make to every country," but the company also provided much more personal service and loss-prevention services.

"All in all, it was a great switch," Black said.

Rizvi also created a different primary and excess marine liability solution for Freeport LNG Development that offered some premium savings and better coverage, said Anne Rappold, the company's risk manager.

In addition, he discovered and resolved a major potential coverage issue concerning whether certain products stored at Freeport LNG's facility were covered within the company's primary and excess marine liability program, she said.

Rizvi informed them that the insurers did not view the products as covered under the program, although Freeport LNG believed otherwise.

Regional Executive Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher, Metairie, La.

Creating Global Risk Solutions

Numa, mostly known as Bumpy, Triche "is considered the most knowledgeable broker in the industry. Hands down," said Abram Hunt, an executive with Galliano Marine Services LLC in Louisiana. And that knowledge was especially helpful when he coordinated the wording for policies covering Galliano's ships working in Brazil and elsewhere in the world, Hunt said.

All of the countries Galliano deals with -- except Brazil -- worked under a global U.S. policy, requiring a "differences in conditions policy" that cost the company about $250,000 a year, until Triche was able to get the underwriters of the U.S. and Brazilian policies to adopt policy wording that worked for both.

"I think he does an excellent job in terms of going out to the market and coming forward with creative solutions to issues related to renewals and coverage," Hunt said.

He also meets unexpected challenges quickly and successfully, said Denny Borne, risk manager at Bollinger Shipyards Inc. in Louisiana.

In one 30-day period, Bollinger went from just building and repairing boats to owning and operating them, she said. That new venture needed an underwriting package "based on our reputation as a shipyard and not as an operator, which was very challenging."

But Triche, regional executive vice president at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., in Metairie, La., went to London, met with more than two dozen underwriters and put a $50 million package together for one vessel -- a number that soon increased to 10 vessels, Borne said.