NSU Hospitality, the flagship division of National Specialty Underwriters, Inc. (NSU), headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, is emerging from the hard insurance market well positioned to expand and serve its client base of hotels, resorts, and casinos.

Since opening in 1995, NSU has leveraged its success and steady growth in hospitality to add new programs for the health care industry and for catastrophic property risks. In addition to branch offices in New York and Florida, NSU has appointed more than 300 brokers representing all 50 states. Products include a wide range of property, casualty and umbrella coverages. Recently, NSU made some positive changes to its well-established hospitality insurance programs.

"We have expanded the base of insurance companies supporting our hospitality programs," explains Chris Randall, president and CEO of NSU. "It wasn't easy at a time of tightened capacity, but we now have a wider array of options and solutions for our clients. Our primary product is an exclusive program with one of the financially strongest companies in the world, but we also have substantial writings with three additional insurers, each of whom specializes in the hospitality industry and has a Best's Financial Rating of 'A' or better. When a risk doesn't fit one carrier, we can still offer a market of the highest quality."

"The key to our success," continues Randall, "is to be consistent and execute as a program administrator, despite marketplace changes. We work to keep NSU focused and specialized through all the ups and downs of the insurance cycle."

Executive Vice President Dusty Rowland concurs. "NSU Hospitality provides cost-effective risk management solutions to an industry that presents a big challenge to insurers. Hotels are a 24-hour-a-day risk environment with constantly changing hazards. By staffing with experts who do nothing but hospitality, NSU serves retail brokers in ways that generalists can't match. Our clients benefit from our strengths--financially secure markets, broad coverage, high limits, service from industry experts, and group purchasing power.

"As a hospitality specialist, we speak the language of the hotel operator. We know needs differ for limited service hotels, mid-market properties, luxury resorts, and casinos. So, NSU hospitality tailors products to meet the needs of the different segments, varying policy features and services accordingly.

"Hotels are occasionally subject to multi-million dollar lawsuits," adds Rowland, "so we have constructed an umbrella product that is among the most attractive on the market with limits reaching $150 million and higher.

"NSU has also invested in a service unit that helps to design and deliver loss control, claims, and information to our clients in an effort to reduce losses. These services include on-site consulting, industry-specific technical bulletins, brochures, manuals, videos, and tailored risk management reports.

"Whenever possible, NSU uses Certus Claims, a TPA, to adjust our hospitality claims. Like NSU, Certus Claims specializes in hospitality. They have a dedicated unit that has adjusted more than 22,000 hotel claims, so they know what it takes to give our customers the best possible bottom-line result and account service.

"We don't rest on our laurels. We continue to develop new products and services. Right now we are preparing for the future by installing a state-of-the-art insurance processing system that will help us be even more responsive to our clients by reducing redundant data entry and automating the delivery of information.

"When you add up all these benefits to the insurance broker and hotel operator," concludes Randall, "we have very high quality insurance products to offer and an outstanding staff to deliver them. Fortunately, even in a hard market, quality still matters, and it still sells." *