What Ancient Roman Firefighting Can Teach Us About the State of Commercial Insurance Today

There are rare moments in one’s professional life when you can take what you were taught in childhood into present-day learning. I’m thinking back to my 8th-grade Ancient Roman history class, where I learned information that I had thought would forever be useless but have since found that presumption to be untrue.

The history of firefighting in Ancient Rome, for example. is a tad sordid but it offers lessons about the state of the commercial insurance industry today. According to Wikipedia, Marcus Licinius Crassus (115 – 53 BC) was a Roman general who was referred to as the “richest man in Rome.” He also is credited with creating the first-ever Roman fire brigade. Rome had no fire department, so Crassus formed a brigade of enslaved people who would rush to the scene of a fire when alarms of an inferno in progress went out. Upon arrival, however, he and his brigade would not begin extinguishing the fire until the building owner agreed to sell it to him at a severely discounted price.

The choice for an owner was relatively straightforward. Either sell your building at a loss and come away with something or let it burn and come away with nothing.

Crassus’ crass firefighting business model provides a lesson for many commercial insurers and risk professionals as property owners face double-digit rate increases in insurance premiums.

Though predatory, Crassus was providing a service. His firefighting brigade wasn’t an insurance product, but it was the transference of the risk of the total loss of one’s investment. In an environment where insurance premiums continue to rise, insurers can’t simply look at their clients and say, “here’s the price to recover your losses; take it or leave it.” So it is no surprise that risk managers likely will ask insurers what supplemental services they can offer to reduce the risk of losses and to justify the cost of insurance, which is increasingly becoming untenable for property owners with expansive portfolios.

Consider the following.

Prevention Mindset

Preventing a loss in the first place is the most effective method by which to avoid having a claim made. Asking insurers to build teams around preventing losses before they happen will not only preserve capital spent but will serve both risk managers and insurers by providing clients with an invaluable touch of added customer service.

Tech-First Risk Detection

In 2023, technologies exist that can do things the human mind cannot and at speeds of less than a second. Whether placing gas leak sensors inside buildings, or water leak and flood detection systems, those who can advise risk managers on best practices for risk detection will win the hearts and minds of their clients. In addition, Brownie points to insurers who can provide insight on implementing such mitigation strategies at scale.

Risk Mitigation

Risk mitigation reduces or avoids the impacts of various risks, such as earthquakes, floods and fires. What are your buildings at risk of in the first place? What are the plans for addressing and mitigating those risks? How can the practice be folded into the broader business management efforts? In today’s market, ignorance isn’t bliss. If anything, ignorance puts insureds and their properties at even greater risk.

Risk Mitigation Credits

With a hardened insurance market, every dollar counts. The U.S. tax code offers tax credits for the purchase of electric and solar panels on our homes. What if insurance companies offered “credits” to incentivize property owners and risk managers to install risk mitigation measures? How could this increase resiliency across the insurance value chain?

Institutionalizing Your Response

What happens when your distribution warehouse is at risk of flooding from an approaching hurricane? Do your facilities managers understand what actions they should take? They need guidance on how to respond when disaster hits and what they can do to reduce the impacts.

Risk managers who ask their insurers to take the lead on innovating past their primary product offering and into the next generation of services will be in a great position to thrive, allocate capital and ultimately, increase resilience for their clients and bring the value premiums are worthy of.