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Kevin Eggleston Senior Vice President
Wells Fargo, Rancho Cordova, Calif.

Innovative Approaches

As CFO of a hotel-management company with about 100 hotels of diverse size under more than two dozen different brands, Jeff Virgil needed a program that would be easy to manage.

Kevin Eggleston, senior vice president and national hospitality practice leader at Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc. in Rancho Cordova, Calif., was able to create a program for RIM Hospitality that would do just that, Virgil said, including the development of a spreadsheet that allows Virgil to "quote on the fly" while in the midst of fast-moving business transactions. Those quotes, he said, are honored by the insurer. "It's just incredibly difficult what we do," Virgil said, noting that Eggleston's program "really helps the business."

He was also lauded for helping OTO Development handle the risk of Florida windstorms and California earthquakes, with an innovative approach to catastrophic insurance, said Charles King, the chief financial officer with OTO.

The tiered approach Eggleston devised allows all of the company's 36 hotel properties to share in a risk pool, King said. And, at the same time, "he got in front of the rate increases and locked us in at relatively reasonable rates, with little or no increase year over year in our property and casualty rates."

During the past year, Eggleston also used an offshore captive to put together a $5 million loss-sensitive approach for a hotel-management company, which unbundled its insurance program and offered the potential of repatriating the surplus in a few years.

Managing Director
Aon, New York
Translating Risk

David Johnson is the broker Wyndham Worldwide relies on to support its global footprint, said Michael Dougherty, director of risk management and insurance at Wyndham, who notes that Wyndham does business in six continents and 100 countries outside the United States.

"You have to have people you can trust to support the organization," Dougherty said. "He is the person that Wyndham trusts.

"He guides us on what can be expected throughout the globe. ... We need that insight for us to be successful in our global growth," he said.

That's because Johnson, managing director at Aon Risk Solutions in New York, is the "foreign go-to person," said one hospitality company executive.

"Everything has gotten so international and homogenous that you think ideas and concepts and words that we deal with in the U.S. translate automatically -- and they don't.

"It's important that you have someone who you can go to who helps make those translations make sense," said the executive, who noted that "the premium is not always the most important thing. Most important is making sure you have the coverage when you need it and you understand what the coverage is."

Getting the right coverage can be challenging. That was the case when Avis Budget Group acquired Avis Europe, said Barbara H. Vitale, director of risk management. She said in an email that Johnson was invaluable as he helped her review insurance requirements in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and mastered the structure of Avis Europe's complex insurance program.

Managing Director
Beecher Carlson, Waterford, Conn.

Setting Service Standards

After a hotel manager on duty failed to contact a clean-up company following a flood situation because of the potential cost, Gerald Levine made sure such a situation wouldn't happen again for his client. He put together a preferred status relationship with ServiceMaster for Real Hospitality Group, which oversees 30 hotels in New York and three nearby states.

The agreement includes an 800 phone number, a guaranteed two-hour response to a water-damage event and results in automatic prenegotiated payment of the insurance claim. The mitigation procedure has minimized property damage to carpet, wall board, wallpaper and furniture. It also has reduced revenue losses by 30 percent to 40 percent, and reduced the number of lost room nights by 20 percent to 30 percent in the past year.

"It has worked phenomenally well," said Ben Seidel, president and CEO of Real Hospitality Group. "That is one of the things that goes way above and beyond anything any broker has done for us before."
Levine, managing director at Beecher Carlson Insurance Services in Waterford, Conn., has also taken over leadership of the safety programs at each of the group's hotel properties, Seidel said. And when questions arise, "he has a direct line to each of our owners and our owners have a direct line to him."

"When you have dealt with someone for a while," said Len Wolman, chairman and CEO of Waterford Hotel Group, "and received outstanding service, it almost becomes an expectation."

National Gaming Practice Leader
Marsh, Newport Beach, Calif.

A Winning Choice

Jared Mitilier, national gaming practice leader at Marsh in Newport Beach, Calif., always tries to meet and exceed his client's needs -- even when it's not exactly an insurance solution.

"The guy just knows everything about gaming," said Joe Anzures, vice president of corporate sales at Western Union Financial Services. "I know he is well respected within the industry and has relationships with all of the top gaming providers." His connections have provided Western Union with additional services beyond insurance solutions -- including entrepreneurial opportunities, he said.

"It's definitely been very beneficial," Anzures said, noting that he was not able to discuss details of one of the projects Mitilier helped his company with.

Mitilier's wealth of knowledge was also a big winner for Nate Newby, the former director of marketing at Santa Anita Park.

Newby said the racetrack is constantly putting together new contests and promotions -- and always at the last minute. "He always knows who is going to be willing to look at those different kinds of risks," he said.

Mitilier helped the Flagship Restaurant Group, said its president and owner Tom Allisma, by being very involved in the group's ongoing expansion plans as well as its risk management efforts. He consolidated the group's policies. "It really made everything a lot more efficient and in the end, it ended up saving us $30,000 a year by what he did," Allisma said, in addition to offering better coverage.

Assistant Vice President
Marsh, Philadelphia

Weathering the Storm

Hardening property premiums make renewals even tougher for hospitality organizations located in high-risk coastal areas.

The director of risk management for one large gaming organization credits Jenna Pettinelli, assistant vice president at Marsh in Philadelphia, with helping to successfully manage its "very complex property placement because of our catastrophe exposure in the Gulf."

The executive, who asked that his name and organization not be publicly disclosed, said Pettinelli provided superb client service while negotiating hundreds of wording changes requested by more than 50 different insurers.

"I am a very difficult client ... and she is, by far, the best [broker] I have," he said.

For that catastrophe-exposed client, Pettinelli commissioned a custom study to address some incorrect assumptions that were built into the RMS 11 model, which would have quadrupled loss estimates and, of course, premiums.

Using the study's results, the model loss estimates were significantly reduced, resulting in premium savings of about 20 percent.

Deborah Vivirito, vice president, risk management at CDI Corp., said Pettinelli is collaborative, solution-oriented and an excellent communicator.

"Recently, we moved from one property form to another ... . She made sure our unique business insurance exposures were properly addressed in that new form," Vivirito said. "She came up with a creative way of making sure that that got done."

Senior Vice President
Willis, Denver

Bringing Enterprise Risk Management to Chipotle

When David Young won the Chipotle Mexican Grill account this past year, he quickly realized the Denver-based Fortune 1000 company had spent much of its focus on insurance transactions, and little on proactive risk management. A strategic turnaround was soon in place.

"Honestly, David Young has a way of bringing enterprise risk management to our attention in a way that is meaningful and impactful for what we do on a day-to-day basis," said R.L. Harris, safety, security and risk analyst at the company. "By doing this, Chipotle has been in a better position to make informed decisions in our approach to managing risk."

Harris said Young, senior vice president at Willis of Colorado in Denver, worked with the Safety, Security and Risk team at Chipotle to establish monthly meetings with managers in many functional areas of the company to consult on risk prevention strategies and implementations.

"I have noticed that, because of those meetings, people are more open and conversational about how they are approaching risk at Chipotle," she said.

Young also did not neglect the existing insurance program, which he restructured. That produced premium savings in excess of 25 percent, even in a firming market, said Harris.

He also has helped Chipotle save money, Harris said, by restructuring the way it does its due diligence and bond general contractors and subcontractors. "We just started with Willis this year and it feels like they have been with us for a while," she said. "They have really made some great changes for us. It's a great partnership."