Risk management and insurance Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Risk management and insurance - Assignment Example (Yahoo Finance 2013) Professional liability insurance is a specialized form of liability insurance which indemnifies a professional who causes a loss to his or her client due to the negligent performance of their duties or which is not up to the professional standards stipulated by the professional association regulating the particular professional. For example, if a real estate agent arranged the sale of a property to a buyer on the basis that it would provide a specified level of rental income and it failed to do so, the real estate agent could be held liable for the shortfall on the basis of negligent misrepresentation. The article goes on to state that Great American Insurance Group’s Professional Liability Division launched earlier this year with offices in New York and Pennsylvania. Great American Stock Performance The following material was obtained from http://ir.greatamerican.com/stockquote.htm. It was obtained at 2:06 pm. ET Nov. 22, 2013. Last Price Change Open Day High 52 Week High $0.26 $0.00(Down 7.63%) $0.26 $0.26 $0.50 Volume Previous Close Day Low 52 Week Low 11,500 $0.26 $0.26 $0.15 Year End Stock Prices Stock Price ($) $3.70 $0.49 $0.12 $0.31 Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 The website goes on to stipulate that the above information is intended for informational and not trading purposes and is provided by a third party and not Great American. Description of Company Great American Insurance Group is engaged primarily in property and casualty insurance focusing on specialized commercial products for businesses and in the sale of traditional annuities.(Great American Insurance Group) The Property and Casualty Group (P and C) is among the oldest in the US, dating from the founding of the Great American Insurance Company in 1872. The website advises it has about 30 specialty lines of insurance to meet the needs especially of a variety of small and mid sized businesses. (Presumably this is because larger companies tend to have sufficient resources to self insure for many of the risks.) The site also claims that the company builds relationships with the markets and the communities it serves so that they can concentrate on their core business rather than on the risks they may face. While this is likely true, it must be remembered that companies too small to have their own risk manager tend to rely on their insurance broker for sound impartial advice concerning what insurance coverage they really need and what risks can be dealt with more economically by other means. The website also quotes high financial strength ratings by such agencies as Standard & Poors and Moodys. There are also various kinds of reinsurance coverage available within the Great American Group. There are 4 accounting ratios important to the financial health of a company. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain precise figures for Great American, only the reference to their overall â€Å"A† rating by agencies indicating that this company is in good standin g financially. However I will explain the calculation and the importance of each of the ratios. The first one is the loss ratio which is losses (claims paid) plus adjustment expenses