Risk snapshot
A pharmaceutical contract packaging facility supplying regulated pharmacy distribution channels. Contents declared in the low-to-mid seven figures, the bulk of which was packaging machinery and associated packing equipment.
Situation
The client needed both a property programme and a standalone $20 million public and products liability placement. Previous attempts to sit the cover under a standard business pack, including at renewal history, had not produced terms. When the risk came to us, we worked through the business pack route first as well, and ran into the same outcome. That confirmed the programme needed to move onto an ISR wording with a separate liability layer, rather than sitting inside a bundled SME product.
The cover had to include business interruption on a 12 month indemnity basis calculated on revenue, plate glass, and machinery cover sized to the packing equipment specifically.
Construction and exposure
Tenanted premises in a western Sydney industrial estate. Mixed packaging and clean-handling environment with concentrated high-value machinery, regulated stock-in-hand, and compliance-sensitive handling protocols. High machinery concentration in a single location is exactly the contents profile that pushes an SME market to either decline or sub-limit the risk to a point where it stops being useful.
Cover placed
A split programme. Property, contents, and business interruption on a specialist ISR wording via one underwriting market. Twenty million dollars of public and products liability placed separately via a standalone liability insurer. Twelve month indemnity period on revenue. Plate glass included. Machinery cover structured to respond to the packing equipment.
Market journey
A large number of insurers were approached across both the property and liability sides of the programme. Decline reasons included revenue thresholds, occupation codes sitting outside automatic acceptance, minimum premium floors at specialist markets, minimum sum insured requirements, and appetite limitations on the combination of high-value machinery contents with a $20M liability limit. The programme was ultimately placed through specialist markets on both sides.
Outcome
Total annual programme premium around $20,000 across the combined property, business interruption, and liability covers.
Why it mattered
A business pack could not respond to this risk, which is why neither the client’s prior broker nor our own first attempt could source terms on that structure. The contents limit, the occupation code, the BI extension on a 12 month basis, and the $20M liability requirement each on their own would have been enough to push this risk off a packaged product. Stacked together, the ISR wording with a standalone liability layer was the only structure that let this facility carry the right combination of cover in a single defensible programme.