Founded in 1972, ShelterPoint Life, formerly First Rehabilitation Life, has provided businesses in New York with statutory DBL and enriched DBL coverage for decades. ShelterPoint’s Director of Business Development Simon Klarides notes that the book is predominantly small group business of under 100 lives. The insurance carrier also provides ancillary benefits including dental, vision, and life insurance, to these organizations.
Over the past 11 years, ShelterPoint has gone through a name change and extensive growth, standing at the leading edge of DBL and PFL coverage in New York. ShelterPoint remains a top-rated insurance carrier because of the company’s ability to stay one step ahead of change, and to be there to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
Introducing… The Rep Roundtable
In a new video feature from DBL Center, The Rep Roundtable, our own Michael Cohen and ShelterPoint’s Simon Klarides talk about how they partnered when Zurich exited the statutory market seven years ago, which represented one such opportunity for ShelterPoint and DBL Center.
“I was at my desk in Great Neck, Long Island, at the time, and I got the call from [DBL Center’s] Eugene [Puleo],” Klarides recalls. “And Eugene said, “’You’re never going to believe this.’”
In an early morning meeting, Michael Cohen, his father and DBL Center Founder David Cohen, Puleo, and Klarides, along with ShelterPoint CEO Richard White, plotted a course of action that would enable ShelterPoint to take the lion’s share of Zurich’s business for statutory, which included both under and over 50 Lives.
DBL Center was tasked with transferring 6000 policies, worth over $8.8 million in premium. However, with the deal coming as it did at the time of Hurricane Sandy, property & casualty brokers in New York had larger concerns. DBL Center President Michael Cohen turned this obstacle into an opportunity.
Most of the brokers permitted DBL Center to not just write the policy, but to enrich their DBL coverage at the time of the transfer to offset the minimum premiums, which makes even more sense now that PFL has become a law.
Hear the whole story from Simon and Michael starting at timestamp 3:44 in the video. You’ll also see Louis Ortiz, senior sales representative for Principal Financial Group, weigh in on changes to the industry, which we’ll cover in a future blog post.
AmTrust Wesco Exits Statutory Market in New York
Now, almost seven years to the day that Zurich exited the statutory DBL market, Wesco, a member of the AmTrust Financial Services Group, announced its exit from statutory DBL and PFL in New York.
AmTrust Wesco, however, agreed to allow ShelterPoint Life Insurance Company (Shelter Point Life) the opportunity to offer their brokers coverage to fulfill the need for New York statutory short-term disability (DBL) and Paid Family Leave (PFL).
As a result, the DBL Center replaced the DBL / PFL policies for all its brokers’ impacted clients with Shelter Point Life, effective January 1, 2020. DBL Center took this step to protect business owners from non-compliance with the State of New York’s statutory disability and PFL benefit requirements.
The transition will be much smoother than it was for brokers shopping their former Zurich policies seven years ago. DBL Center, like ShelterPoint insurance, has been growing incrementally over the past decade and is positioned to assist with all statutory DBL and PFL, enriched DBL and ancillary benefits policies.
As an added benefit, brokers will gain free access to DBL Center’s proprietary Broker Dashboard, which enables brokers to view all active cases and receive monthly reminders for cases that are pending non-pay status.
The Rep Roundtable video, where Cohen and Klarides recap Zurich’s exit, was produced weeks before AmTrust Wesco announced its exit from the statutory DBL market. Sometimes, history repeats itself in unusual ways.
Let’s just hope there are no hurricanes on the horizon for the tri-state area this time. DBL Center brokers, at least, with the support of A+ rated carrier ShelterPoint, can count on clear skies ahead.
