Overview and key points
Broadwick Soho engaged with Partners& for a comprehensive insurance review, resulting in enhanced coverage, cost savings, and improved risk management—future-proofing the hotel’s operations and providing peace of mind in London’s competitive hospitality market.
Broadwick Soho is an independent luxury hotel in the heart of London’s West End. When it opened its doors in November 2023, it aimed to channel the grit, glamour and wild energy of London’s most vibrant area into an opulent contemporary 57 room retreat, offering impeccable service and quality.
Challenge
The challenges a business is facing may not always be obvious – unknown unknowns are the most common risks we come across.
The hospitality sector is facing the challenge of rising operating costs with the effects of the current economic climate having an impact on business. Managing costs whilst maintaining the right level of insurance cover is a challenge many companies face – but cutting costs and having insufficient cover in place can have a significant financial impact in the event of a claim.
Being aware of and understanding the challenges and risks to your business is key to success, enabling you to take the right steps to build resilience.
Broadwick Soho wanted a second opinion on their insurance arrangements to benchmark and look for any improvements that could be made. As a new boutique hotel operating in the competitive hospitality industry in the heart of London, future proofing is key to their ongoing success.
In early 2024, the hotel’s owner (himself a private client with Partners&) was happy for Matt Mullee to introduce Jayson Abbott to the new management team at Broadwick Soho to review the current insurance arrangements.
Whilst Broadwick Soho remained happy with their current broker – they were keen to obtain a second opinion and liked the Partners& approach. We offered to undertake a full audit at no cost to review their current insurance programme and highlight both the areas that were good and any areas of concern.
Support
The Partners& team undertook a full review of the hotel’s existing insurance arrangements – not just looking at the specific cover in place, but from a risk management and future-proofing perspective.
Our audit highlighted some key areas for action that we would undertake for Broadwick Soho by taking a strategic and comprehensive approach to the market:
- Review of the sums insured
- Review of the cyber policy limits
- Review of the business interruption indemnity period
- Review of the valet parking limits
We used our expertise in the hospitality sector and our specialist insurer relationships to produce the best terms in the market and generate savings, benefits and increased covers.
Our report highlighted areas of concern and we talked through the potential outcomes of the potential risks of doing nothing versus implementing the changes we recommended. This helped the client understand the proposed recommendations and how they would build greater resilience into their current arrangements, e.g. increasing the cyber cover and valet parking limits.
Following the review, and despite further discussions with the current broker, Partners& were appointed with the programme being arranged in line with the audit recommendations.
Another key update was to extend the business interruption indemnity period from 36 to 48 months – more appropriate for the time it would take to rebuild a unique central London hotel of significant value. The existing cover would have potentially been sufficient for three years, after which it was estimated that 75% of the rebuild would have been completed – but what would happen to the business for the remaining period?
The hotel has a large collection of fine art and our specialist underwriters, Virtu were able to provide bespoke cover, recognising the shared ownership of the pieces between the hotel’s owner and the hotel itself.
We also increased the valet parking limits per loss to reflect the hotel’s clientele and the vehicles being looked after.
The overall programme included added risk management benefits with a rebate of £9.5k being issued on day 2 of the policy going live, an ongoing low claims rebate, 0% direct debit facility and a two-year Long-Term Agreement (LTA) to help protect against unexpected premium rate increases.
Finally, our Wellbeing, Health and Protection team are now offering support to Broadwick Hotel and will be discussing their people risk and employee benefits programme later in the year.
Perform
Our job as insurance advisers is not just to provide insurance solutions, but to educate our clients so that they can make informed decisions about building resilience against the challenges they face.
Not only did we provide the owners of Broadwick Soho with peace of mind that they have a robust insurance and risk management programme in place, but they now have a much greater
understanding of the risks they face – and how their insurance works to protect their business.
Finance Director, Aqeel Ilyas told us that he learned a lot throughout the process and was glad he undertook the exercise and thanked us for our role in explaining it all to him.
This is how and why the Partners& Difference approach works for our clients: our risk management expertise, our markets expertise, our underwriting expertise and our people risk expertise. We make sure you understand the insurance you have – and why you need it.
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