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Nigel Williams
has seen his share of unusual risks during an insurance career which
has spanned 47 years, and admits that not much could surprise him
now.
"Over the years, we've had a real chuckle here
and there," he laughs as he recalls some of the more memorable risks
to come his way. "I remember one time, a female wrestler was going
on a tour of the Far East. It seems that part of her act included
the use of a 12-foot-long python. What she did with the python was
never made exactly clear, but she did need insurance for it. We
were eventually able to provide the coverage for the snake."
While this example of a hard-to-place risk isn't
entirely commonplace, it's not totally unexpected for N.G. Williams
and Associates either. The specialty market company, based in Vancouver,
acts as an intermediary by providing market support to brokers,
enabling them to write difficult risks without a contract."We have
quite a mixture of business actually," Williams explains. "For the
most part, we are involved with heavy equipment - logging trucks
and that sort of thing.
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But
we handle overseas projects as well as inland marine."
Examples of offshore business the company has
handled over the years include the construction of several schools
and gymnasiums in Russia, power stations in Cuba and insurance coverage
of several tree farms in Chile.
"A lot of our business consists of fairly mundane
things, but we'll tackle virtually anything that is unusual," Williams
explains. Last year, we provided the coverage for the equipment
used by the Canadian Mount Everest expedition. Our business comes
to us from both big and small brokers across the country but mainly
from the western provinces."
"A broker from Calgary, for example, will call
us and say "Listen, we've got an oil company here that is interested
in a project in Russia near the Caspian Sea," Williams says. "This
situation actually occurred a couple of years ago, and we were able
to provide the coverage for the equipment that was going there.
This was pretty wild stuff back in those days - they had to have
armed guards riding shotgun on top of the train.
Continues...
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