Brokers

Overview

ICI Mutual recognizes the important advisory role that professional insurance brokers play for many fund groups, and these brokers, in turn, recognize the central role that ICI Mutual plays in the insurance market for fund industry professional liability insurance.  As the only insurer to focus exclusively on the fund industry’s specialized risks and insurance coverages, ICI Mutual serves as a resource for professional insurance brokers on the industry’s liability risks, claims, and insurance programs.

As the fund industry’s predominant provider of directors and officers/errors and omissions (D&O/E&O) liability insurance, independent directors liability (IDL) insurance, and investment company blanket bonds, ICI Mutual works closely with professional insurance brokers to provide client fund groups with insurance options that are responsive to their needs, and with policy terms and conditions that address their real-world liability risks.

FAQs

  • How does ICI Mutual work with brokers?

  • As an insurer owned and operated by the fund industry, ICI Mutual does not appoint brokers or pay commissions.  ICI Mutual does, however, work regularly and closely with professional insurance brokers to provide client fund groups with insurance options that are responsive to their needs, and with policy terms and conditions that address their real-world liability risks. ICI Mutual understands that these brokers are typically compensated by their clients on a fee basis.

  • Can an insurance agent or broker submit applications to ICI Mutual on behalf of a client?

  • ICI Mutual accepts submissions from agents or brokers made on behalf of any member of the Investment Company Institute.  For additional information, an agent or broker may contact Senior Vice President & Chief Underwriting Officer John Mulligan at mulligan@icimutual.com.

  • Will ICI Mutual manuscript terms and conditions for clients, if requested?

  • ICI Mutual has always sought, to the extent feasible, to craft appropriate specialized terms and conditions (in the form of policy “endorsements” and/or bond "riders") to meet the particularized needs of individual insureds.  At the same time, ICI Mutual has remained sensitive to the importance of avoiding disparate treatment of insureds who are in like circumstances.  Accordingly, ICI Mutual avoids “manuscripting” its standard policy and bond forms at the request of individual insureds.  Rather, where proposed modifications have general applicability to all insureds, such modifications must typically be considered by management and, as appropriate, evaluated and approved by the Underwriting and Risk Management Committees (“ICIM Committees”) of ICI Mutual’s Board of Directors (whose members are representatives of member insureds), before such modifications are made to ICI Mutual’s standard forms.  When proposals are brought to the ICI Mutual staff, the staff reviews those proposals, and raises with the ICIM Committees any issues that the staff may conclude are appropriate for the ICIM Committees’ consideration.

  • Does ICI Mutual participate in layered insurance programs on a follow-form excess capacity?

  • Yes.  The majority of the programs ICI Mutual writes are on a primary basis.  However, where appropriate, ICI Mutual is prepared to, and does, participate in layered insurance programs on a follow-form excess basis in order to meet a particular client’s needs.

  • What is ICI Mutual’s financial strength?

  • As a fund industry-owned and operated insurer, ICI Mutual’s management and board of directors have consistently followed a conservative approach to managing the Company’s financial aspects.  ICI Mutual’s low underwriting leverages, combined with its use of a diverse group of financially secure reinsurance partners, has enabled the Company to meet all of its claims obligations, to pay dividends to its owners, and to witness its surplus grow to a level that is far in excess of what is required to support the business it writes and of applicable regulatory requirements.

    The Company’s excellent financial condition has been recognized by A.M. Best with its “A” (Excellent) rating since 1993, the first year the Company was eligible to receive a rating.