Top-up Policy
Top-up Policy
Trade credit insurance is an insurance policy for your outstanding account and protects you against bad debt losses due to your customer’s insolvency.
What options are there for supplementary coverage if the credit limits granted by your credit insurer (primary insurer) are no longer sufficient?
Most of you have already experienced that the limit decision of a credit insurer is not sufficient or that the limit request is rejected completely.
It is the job of a credit insurer to assess the creditworthiness of your customers, to carry out risk management and to grant you limits accordingly. However, in the case of poor creditworthiness or missing financial documents, the credit insurer has no choice but to do partial underwriting.
In addition, there is also the possibility that your buyer’s creditworthiness is sufficient, but the total volume with the existing credit insurer is exhausted. The additional limits are always coupled with an additional premium and differ in many ways.
For some years, the market has been offering so-called “top-up coverage policies”. These are based on the decisions of your credit insurance (primary insurer) and offer additional coverage (top-up coverage). In addition, there is even the possibility in individual cases to agree on additional limits despite an outright rejection.
Your advantages with our GfK Top-up Policy
All products above have their advantages and disadvantages. In order to keep the additional premiums for a top-up policy as low as possible and to be self-sufficient and flexible with regard to an individual credit check, we at GfK designed our own GfK top-up policy solution for our clients several years ago, which can be applied individually and in individual cases.
Your advantages when taking out our top-up policy at a glance:
- The coveragee gaps are not calculated by the existing credit insurer through an additional premium but by a third party so that a different risk weighting and classification, therefore, takes place here.
- 100% flexibility, as this product can be combined with any primary insurer and with a flexible term.
- The separate and individual premium calculation, which is very often below the standard rates of the “in-house solution providers”.
- Exclusive GfK solution for your limit problems.
Further information on the Top-up Policy
Especially for risks that cannot be fully coverage, Euler Hermes offers extra protection with the help of reinsurers to complement your credit insurance. This is an “in-house solution” offered directly by Euler Hermes as a credit insurer. In this way, even a “difficult” transaction can still be coverage up to 100 % in the best case, thanks to optimal risk management.
Depending on the initial situation, Euler Hermes offers you this additional protection in two variants:
- Euler Hermes CAP Insurance
- Euler Hermes CAP+ Insurance
The Euler Hermes CAP insurance supplements the coverage for transactions for which a credit limit already exists under your normal insurance coverage but is insufficient.
CAP is a so-called top-up coverage – i.e., a supplement to your existing credit insurance with Euler Hermes and is also only possible in conjunction with it.
Additional CAP coverage is then possible up to the amount of this reduced sum insured; the protection can thus be doubled at most. Limitation: The CAP portion may not exceed 2.5 million euros. The contract to be concluded separately can double the partially subscribed limit. The conditions are standardised at 2 % and are therefore always comprehensible.
Euler Hermes Cap+ Insurance:
Within the scope of CAP+ coverage, limits that have been completely rejected can also be partially insured; however, the maximum limit subscription is € 50,000. The limits are granted on a revocable basis. The conditions are standardised at 6% and are therefore always comprehensible.
Information on Coface
TOPLiner:
The corresponding Coface product is named “Topliner”. Every policyholder of a Coface credit insurance contract can use this additional coverage. Like Euler Hermes, the client can apply for the insurance coverage online. As with Euler Hermes, this is an “in-house solution” offered by Coface directly to its clients.
A Coface TOPLiner limit is only offered to you for H30, 60 or a maximum of 90 days. After this period, a new request must be made. The costs may then vary depending on the development of your creditworthiness.
The main difference to CAP or CAP+ coveragee from Euler Hermes is that this is an additional limit that cannot be cancelled (except in the event of insolvency).
Atradius:
Atradius is taking a different approach here – the insurer is having its partner Tokyo Marine Kiln provide the additional protection under the name “CoverageOnTop”.
The main difference to Coface and Euler Hermes is that here it is impossible to apply for individually selected additional limits. At Atradius, the entire partially underwritten portfolio is coverage by Tokyo Marine Kiln.
This eliminates the need to apply for individual limits; a total capacity is purchased annually. This is determined individually based on the actual requirement (the difference between the partial decision and the amount of the credit limit originally applied). Here, too, a maximum doubling of the amount of the partial decision up to the amount of the original limit application is possible.
Only obligation:
There is a bidding obligation, i.e., the purchased capacity must be sufficient to coverage all coverage gaps and be increased if necessary.
Do you have any questions? Then send us a message!
You have a question? Simply fill out our online contact form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Or contact us by phone or email at:
Phone: +49 (0) 221 / 88 88 57-0
E-Mail: kontakt@gfkmbh.com
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