After I put together the best package of coverages I could for this client, he suggested, in essence, that I look into developing a program for his profession, so I decided to investigate the matter. I got in touch with the Professional Land Surveyors of Colorado and began learning more about their members. Increasingly, they hold bachelor's degrees in land surveying. Some work in one-person shops generating perhaps $100,000 in annual billings; others may be employed in concerns doing $10 million to $12 million of work a year.

One way to think about land surveyors is that on a wide range of projects-encompassing the construction of everything from bridges, tunnels and roads to houses, condos and manufacturing plants-they are the first ones on the scene. Surveyors also are essential to the simple transfer of property. For instance, if you refinance your home, in all likelihood a land surveyor working for a title company will prepare an improvement location certificate attesting to the fact that your house and any detached garage, shed, etc., do not encroach on adjoining property, and that no improvement on your neighbor's property encroaches on yours.

The work of land surveyors is filed in the recorder of deeds office in every county in the country. Some perform boundary surveys, in which they lay out property lines and find survey monuments (also called control points), which in some cases may be 200 years old, that denote property corners. They also set monuments themselves. Some surveyors specialize in boundary surveys for one sort of client, like ranchers. Others may work with numerous types.

Some surveyors specialize in highway work, typically working as subcontractors to private contractors or the U.S. Department of Transportation. Other surveyors work with property developers, creating subdivision plats and laying out the locations of streets, driveways, gutters, curbs and sidewalks. The public sector is a big employer of land surveyors, who may work for the U.S. Geological Survey; the Bureau of Land Management; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and numerous state and local highway departments, planning departments and redevelopment agencies. Surveyors may do extremely specialized work. For instance, a Missouri client involved in geotechnical surveying tracks the changing boundaries of the Mississippi River.

Once I got a good feel for what land surveyors do and for the exposures they face, I worked with Hartford Insurance Co. to develop a customized package product for land surveyors, covering everything but their professional liability insurance. For instance, an extension to the property form provides coverage for their equipment on and off premises. In the past decade or so, land surveyors' equipment has become extremely high tech. Gone are most of the simple transits of the past, replaced by robotic equipment that can be used to calculate horizontal and vertical angles, record altitude, and electronically measure the distance to vertical rods held by land surveyors' rod men. Later the data recorded by the robotics can be downloaded into a surveyor's computer, where a program will convert it into a set of drawings. On large projects, surveyors also use satellite signal receivers to tap into the Global Positioning System and get a precise fix on a location.

It is essential that this equipment operate properly. An accident involving an instrument may leave no external evidence of damage, but if its calibration is no longer exact, its use could create a professional liability exposure for the land surveyor. Therefore, under our program the insurer is required to pay for the replacement of equipment if its accuracy can no longer be guaranteed. The property is even covered if it is in someone else's care, custody or control; e.g., when it is in the hands of a delivery service.

I received a commitment to the package policy from The Hartford. At the same time, I obtained an endorsement from the Professional Land Surveyors of Colorado and began selling the program. Eventually, however, I had differences with my partners, who wanted to see the agency focus on other accounts. Therefore in 1998, I left the agency and started Assurance Risk Managers. Before doing so, I told the surveyors association that realistically I could not make this move if they didn't back me-and they enthusiastically did so, not only promoting the program heavily to their own members but also opening doors for me to land surveyors associations in Utah, Montana, Washington and other states.

I've never regretted my decision. Land surveyors are private, independent and a little aloof, but I've never had any problem putting on jeans and cowboy boots and going out with a survey crew. Over time, many clients have told me, “You've become one of us,” which I take as a high compliment. Four years ago, when my son was born several weeks prematurely, I was surprised to get call after call of congratulations in my hospital room. It turned out that one of my clients had sent an e-mail announcement to the members of the state association, congratulating all 386 of them on becoming “uncles,” and providing not only the number of the phone in my room but also describing the length and weight of my son in surveyor's terminology. “Essentially,” concluded the surveyor who sent out the message, “he's no bigger than a plumb bob,” a term that some of the “uncles” then used as the baby's nickname.

The associations have been great about helping me market my program. What I offer them is a product with customized forms and attractive rates that I make available exclusively to their members. (Indeed, it has become an effective membership-recruiting tool for them.) I also take an active role in the associations, attending all their conventions and conducting risk-management seminars for their members. For the Professional Land Surveyors of Colorado, I've even become a member of the board. My only expectation of the associations, in turn, is to promote the program in their newsletters, and to publish articles that I write about insurance matters and the program in their journals, magazine-like publications they send to members on a quarterly or semiannual basis.

The package product for the program includes general liability, property (premises and equipment), workers compensation, commercial auto (including hired/nonowned auto), umbrella and everything else a typical small business might need. Separately, we provide professional liability insurance on specialized forms. We started out working with Admiral Insurance Co. and a Lloyd's syndicate. More recently, we've formed a relationship with CNA/Victor O. Schinnerer, which has accepted land surveyors working in most any discipline, including condominium construction, which many other markets will not write.

All the professional liability markets we work with have created forms for land surveyors that are distinct from those they use to insure architects and engineers. The insurance industry has changed over the last five years, and “hybrid” risks-land surveyors that derive at least 20% of their revenue from engineering work-can be covered on an architects and engineers form from which exclusions applicable to land surveying have been dropped. But clients who work strictly in surveying remain better off with a land surveyors professional liability form.

For land surveyors involved in residential or commercial real estate construction, it's important to ensure their professional liability policies do not have a construction-defects exclusion. When mold or other damage arises from alleged construction defects, property owners typically sue everyone involved in the project. In most cases, the land surveyors are eventually dismissed from the suits-I have yet to have a client pay a construction defect claim-but in the meantime they need defense coverage.

It's desirable to get defense costs covered in addition to policy limits and full retroactive coverage, as some markets will provide. Project-specific limits also can be arranged.

Submissions

We work with clients primarily by telephone and e-mail, using the association meetings for most face-to-face contact. We have authority to bind the package product and can turn around quotes for professional liability insurance within 24 hours. For the professional liability quote, we require a completed application to which is attached a list of five or so projects that can give an underwriter a feel for the type of work a land surveyor does. We also ask for specimen copies of surveyors' professional services contracts, sample brochures and addresses for their Web sites.

We need r?sum?s of anyone authorized to sign maps, drawings and other documents. Typically, this would include all licensed land surveyors in the firm and any civil engineers. Generally, these people have a seal of authority, displaying their license number, which they stamp on documents and then sign. The signed, stamped documents become court records. Consequently, underwriters want to be assured that anyone signing them is qualified to do so.
The application asks for a detailed breakdown of the client's billing in the current and past year, and a projection for the year ahead. I advise clients to be as realistic as possible with the projections.

It's also important to be as accurate as possible in the breakdown. The percentages of revenue derived from work on highways, subdivisions, condos, etc., affect the premium significantly. Underwriters look closely at the amount of work involving residential construction because of the construction-defects exposure. Some insurers will not even offer a quote to land surveyors who have clients in the oil and gas industry. Geotechnical surveying is another problematic exposure for many underwriters.

Underwriters also recommend, but do not always require, that land surveyors work with written contracts. Most carriers, however, expect contracts when land surveyors render service under the terms of written work orders from contractors and other clients. If land surveyors work with subcontractors, underwriters expect them to obtain certificates of insurance from the subs naming them as additional insureds.

We give underwriters as much information as we can. Our objective is to have them develop relationships with our clients too. We want them to get to the point where they feel they are not saying yes or no to a file, but to an actual person. We want to foster a three-way partnership among the underwriter, the client and ourselves.

By taking this approach, we sometimes can get exceptional things done. Recently, one of our long-time clients had a serious claim, which may max out the policy's limit.

“You made a mistake,” I said. “Tell me some things you can do to prevent this from happening again. Give me something I can take to the underwriter.” Together we drafted a letter stating that the insurer was going to pay for the loss regardless of whether they stayed on the risk. Then we described the changes the insured was making in his operation and explained how we believed those changes would prevent the recurrence of such a claim. In essence, we did our best to “re-sell” the account to the underwriting team. In the end, the insurer renewed it. Understandably, the premium was considerably higher, but the client still obtained coverage less expensively than he could have anywhere else-assuming he could have obtained it at all.

Working with land surveyors has given me great personal and professional satisfaction. The program business approach to insurance has enabled me to take the measure of my clients' community and really become part of it. I can't begin to put a price on the mutual trust, loyalty and respect that make up the foundation of my relationship with land surveyors, but they are crucial to my agency's success.

This sure beats just “selling insurance.”

Lisa Isom is the president of Assurance Risk Managers, which she founded in 1998. The agency has seven employees and derives 80% of its business from land surveyors, with the remainder coming from architects, engineers and other risks. Ms. Isom entered the insurance business about 20 years ago in Missouri with the broker Frank B. Hall, where she was a producer in a program for the oil and gas industry. She later worked at, and was a partner in, a Colorado independent insurance agency before starting her own business.