Target Markets Special Section

Target Markets Special Section

National Specialty Underwriters, Inc.

Chris Randall, founder, president, and CEO of the Bellevue, Washington-based National Specialty Underwriters, Inc. (NSU), has long known the value of specialization. Randall began his retail brokerage career in Anchorage, Alaska, by focusing on banking risks. Through ever-increasing expertise, reputation, and client referrals, it wasn’t long before he had most of the banks in his territory as customers. This was a valuable lesson for a young producer, one that was put to good use when he started NSU in 1995.

Randall began NSU with a single-minded emphasis on the hospitality industry. This persistence fueled the company’s rise to national prominence as a commercial insurance program administrator and niche wholesaler, according to Randall. Today, NSU has five offices from coast to coast, and four specialty divisions: hospitality, health care, property, and casualty excess. Hospitality, however, remains a cornerstone of the company.

All NSU production staff specialize in a single industry or coverage area, in order to add value and expertise to the insurance process, Randall adds. “This narrow but deep focus means knowing all there is to know about the hospitality industry and available insurance solutions,” says Randall. “In turn, NSU can provide customers with quick, complete, and accurate answers to questions, reduce the risk of oversights, errors and omissions, and help assess and control policyholder risk.”

Continues Randall: “We have to maintain discipline, while innovating, to stay on top. At NSU Hospitality we keep refining our specialty in order to better serve our retail agents and brokers. Along those lines, we recently cemented a new relationship with a major carrier and jointly developed a new and exclusive Business Oriented Hotel Program.”

Randall explains, “We serve all segments of the hotel industry, but for this particular program, our target clients are hotels that derive a majority of their income from business travelers. It’s a specialty within the Hospitality specialty. We include limited service, middle market, and small luxury hotels. These risks will typically be located near airports, or in urban and suburban business districts. We look for at least 50% of the receipts to be generated by room rates. We can offer these hotels coverage solutions for general liability, auto, property, liquor, and crime. And we have umbrella/excess coverage, with up to $250 million limits if needed.

“The insurance company joining us in this program is among the very best available, with a strong hospitality industry knowledge, and an A.M. Best rating of A+, on admitted paper,” Randall continues. “Together, we offer tremendous overall insurance value. For example, participation in this program provides our policyholder with access to a nationwide network of loss control representatives, online access to loss prevention information, a dedicated claim coordinator assigned as a client’s single point of contact, and fraud management with a nationwide phone directory listing.”

Randall adds, “This new program complements our existing strong markets for upscale and luxury resort hotels, and it ties in very well with our program for the Hilton organization. Since 2001 we have been an approved provider of insurance coverage for Hilton franchise hotels including Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn & Suites, and Homewood Suites. This gives us another great option to offer those market segments. We operate NSU with just a handful of guiding principles,” concludes Randall, “and specializing in all that we do remains at the top of list.” *