Greensite Insurance Services, an Aon speciality insurance program, has launched a cannabis management liability program tailored toward private entities including startups that are looking for substantial management liability protection centered around cannabis.

Greensite is underwritten by Golden Bear Insurance Company, an AM Best ‘A’ (Excellent) rated carrier with previous cannabis experience. Golden Bear’s AM Best credit rating was recently put under review with negative implications reflecting surplus erosion observed in 2021.

Greensite will provide solutions for directors and officers (D&O) with limits up to $5 million, employment practices liability (EPL) and fiduciary liability, and will offer limits in excess of primary management liability programs, according to its website.

Greensite’s target classes are cultivators, processors/harvesters, manufacturers/extractors, testing labs; wholesale distributors, transporters, dispensaries, retailers; and non-storefront delivery, hospitality and other ancillary businesses.

The program is seeking to attract private startups and new ventures with revenues under $1 billion.

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Mercury Insurance made its usage-based insurance app, MercuryGO, available to drivers in New Jersey to help improve driving skills and traffic safety. The app acts as a virtual driving coach, providing skill scores that give real-time feedback about driving behavior.

Mercury auto insurance policyholders who enroll to use the app immediately receive a 5 percent participation discount, and teen drivers will receive up to a 10 percent discount. Then, when MercuryGO customers renew their policies, they could receive a discount of up to 40 percent in addition to their participation discount, depending upon their driving score.

The MercuryGO app generates a driving skill score, which is calculated based on categories that are closely correlated with car crashes, such as excessive speeding, hard braking, distracted driving and road type. It also provides in-app tips to help users become safer drivers, which include a sharing option for families that allows all participating drivers to see who is the safest and the ability for parents to receive real-time feedback about their teen’s driving behavior.

Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) is Mercury’s technology partner. CMT’s research shows that 37 percent of all car trips in the U.S. in 2019 involved significant driver phone distraction, and between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., that figure rises to 41 percent of all U.S. car trips. Additionally, The New Jersey State Police reports there were 590 motor vehicle traffic fatalities in 2020. This averages to one person per day on New Jersey roadways. Speeding, phone use, hard braking and following too closely are common causes of crashes.

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Commercial InsurTech provider Coalition launched its executive risks insurance products with new personalized risk assessments for all clients, offering broader protection for small and midsize businesses.

With insurance coverage provided by Zurich North America, Coalition is now offering directors and officers and employment practices liability with new tools and features to all broker partners, furthering its breadth of offerings to protect businesses against modern risks.

Coalition’s new executive risks products integrate real-time data from a variety of publicly available sources to accurately assess a company’s risk exposure and continuously monitor changes throughout the policy life cycle. Brokers can now quickly generate quotes in under four minutes and offer all clients a Coalition Risk Assessment for Executive Risks, which identifies financial, regulatory and business exposures specific to their business and provides personalized recommendations to protect them from claims.

New research from Coalition shows that in a survey of 1,000 senior executives at small businesses, more than 36 percent of respondents experienced a D&O claim in the past two years, with the average claim costing more than $120,000. With this in mind, Coalition has invested in broker tools including coverage comparisons, educational content and policyholder resources to help brokers serve small and midsize clients.

Sources: Greensite Insurance Services, Mercury Insurance, Coalition