The Hidden Benefit of Credit Insurance: a loss can be avoided when your broker discovers why coverage is unavailable

By Ron Doyle

It appears 2010 was actually a good year for credit risk. Underwriters had fairly low loss ratios, well below those of previous years and commercial bankruptcies were also down. However, it appears that the number of companies filing for creditor protection, while they reorganize, is continuing to be steady in North America, and the latest trend, similar to the General Motors case, is to have all of the reorganization, including Debtor in Process Financing, in place before the actual filing. This feature allows companies to enter and emerge from protection quite quickly. The big losers are normally the unsecured suppliers because all of the secured lenders are privy to the restructuring plan and they protect their position.

In reviewing the Creditors’ List in several large recent cases under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act, CCAA, in Canada, it was apparent to me that many companies were continuing to sell to these buyers without credit insurance and without adequate financial information on the buyer.

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The benefits of working with a LOCAL trade credit insurance broker

By Ron DoyleClick on the map to find local ICBA representation

ICBA Canada, in its 15 years of operations, has been involved with specialist credit insurance brokers around the world. While all specialist brokers deal with credit and political risk policies issued by the five major international credit insurers, specific differences in how underwriters in each country interpret the same basic policies must be noted.

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Nine credit insurance tips as relationships change in 2010 with underwriters, suppliers, buyers, lenders and peers

By Rob DowneyThe sculpture "Apollo and Daphne" by Bernini in the Galleria Borghese (from a file from the Wikimedia Commons)

Long ago, in the days before the crisis (B.C.)… Apollo, god of light, poetry, and eternal youth, the son of Zeus & Leto, was betrothed to Daphne – daughter of the River god, Peneus – and she was a lovely lithesome athlete. Fresh from defeating Python with his bare hands, brash Apollo made fun of chubby be-winged Cupid and his small bow. Impulsive Cupid shot a golden Arrow of Love into Apollo’s heart, but a lead Arrow of Revulsion into the heart of Apollo’s fiancee Daphne. 

Both utterly besotted and frustrated, Apollo chased the fleeing, frightened Daphne through the woods of Olympia for a year. Too tired to run anymore, she asked her father’s help to escape Apollo. Peneus cleverly turned his daughter into a laurel oak tree – source of royal staves and Olympic leaf crowns – so she could be forever near him on the banks of the rivers he ruled. 

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