A Note from Leadership – Sara Brothers, Technical Support, Divisional Vice President
Technical Support Update
The Technical Support team continues to expand our guidance and service to the underwriting, claims and marketing departments. We have been diligently expanding our support through trainings, consultations on various opportunities as well as the management of a team of external consultants. In fact, we have grown to include two new team members during the past year!
Randy Copenhaver joined our team as a Senior Loss Control Consultant. Utilizing his specialization in site remediation, he provides expertise in environmental evaluation to support underwriters in risk identification while crafting policies. Randy recently participated in the Environmental Bankers Association Summer Conference with Eric McCabe, head of the National Underwriting department. They had the opportunity to speak on a panel addressing how environmental insurance is a key component to any lending institution’s risk management toolkit.
Ryan Smith also joined us as Senior Loss Control Consultant. Capitalizing on his environmental science and sustainability expertise, he also delivers similar support to the team through site evaluations and prevention assessment as well as acting as a subject-matter expert on various marketing materials.
Some of the resources developed with the support of the Technical Support team’s expertise include our Environmental Glossary to help you better understand the complexities of various industry terminology, recent technical support publications on industry-leading topics include plastics contamination, dry cleaning and COVID-19 considerations for commercial real estate as well as speaking virtually at a variety of industry events.
Great American Environmental provides value added risk control services to current and prospective insureds through our network of specialty vendors, representing diverse capabilities and experience in a variety of environmental areas.
Some of these environmental risk control support services include:
- Water Management Plans (Legionella Prevention)
- Training- Mold, Legionella, ACM/ LBP, Environmental Regulations, Phase I & II Awareness (Online and in-person)
- Storm Water Plans and Best Management Practices
- Remediation Cost and Strategy Reviews
- Environmental Reserve Evaluations
- Customized Trainings, Webinars and Whitepapers
I invite you to contact our technical support team to further discuss how we can best protect your clients!
Summer Newsletter Preview – Commercial Development Focus
This summer, we have developed several new resources for you to explore within the latest edition of Environmental Insider. Development and manufacturing are key topics within the industry as construction plans resume. With population growth as well as an influx of new infrastructure projects emerging, development will only continue to increase. However, redevelopment of a property can be tricky!
From groundwater contamination to unknown storage tanks, your clients may encounter all sorts of challenges. Could your client’s redevelopment project be facing these types of exposures? Take a look at the potential environmental dangers depicted in our new Brownfield Redevelopment Riskopolis.
When a chemical, fuel or hazardous substance spill occurs, your client may need to take immediate action. Check out the latest article on our Response & React Program which is specifically designed to help policyholders quickly and efficiently navigate a response plan from the moment a spill occurs in the final site approval.
The underwriting professionals of Great American’s Environmental Division are happy to work with you to help uncover the hidden risks in your clients’ redevelopment projects and develop a custom program to further protect them. Our team recently attended and served as subject-matter experts at recent industry events regarding trends in brownfield redevelopment if you would like to explore this topic further. We encourage you to reach out to us should you have any additional questions or if you’re interested in learning more about our specialized coverages for redevelopment.
Enjoy and happy reading!
Sara Brothers, Divisional Vice President, Technical Support
Great American Environmental Division
Sara Brothers is a Divisional Vice President with Great American’s Environmental Division. She brings over 30 years of environmental consulting and construction management experience to Great American. Sara’s background is as a senior geologist with extensive consulting and industry experience in the petroleum, industrial, commercial, and government sectors. She serves as the director of technical support as well as training and is based out of our New York office.