Lachlan St Clair

Sydney-based financial planning company, CSP has just written a $60 million key person insurance policy – believed to be the largest in Australian history – for a global corporation entering the Australian market.

CSP CEO Lachlan St Clair, a former underwriter and a financial adviser with 20 years industry experience, said the policy bucks what appears to be a worrying tendency by the big end of town to ignore key person risk.

“We believe there are many big players in Australia neglecting their fiduciary duty to protect investors and putting both shareholders and their own corporations at risk, because they have not put key person insurance in place,” Mr St Clair said.

Key person insurance is a life insurance policy taken out by a business to protect that business from any financial losses it might suffer in the event of the unexpected death or extended incapacity of an important member or ‘key person’ of the business.

“Big companies – particularly those with public boards – have a responsibility to shareholders and if they’re aware of risks and don’t put the necessary measures in place to protect against them, then their share prices will be affected if they lose a key player to death or disability,” he said.

Although key person insurance has gained some traction in the Australian SME market, Mr St Clair said the risk for larger businesses is potentially much greater as their balance sheets are much greater.

“I’m not too sure why the big end of town does not seem to have addressed key person risk although it could have something to do with a perception that these types of policies require a lot of underwriting and are very time-consuming,” he said.

However, Mr St Clair said that if a corporation’s management team is completely cognizant of its key person risk and fully committed to putting the insurance in place, policies can be written quite quickly.

“Although we cannot disclose which corporation we helped, we can say that because they very much wanted it to happen, we made it happen within three weeks.”

CSP tendered the key person business to six of Australia’s top insurers/reinsurers with ANZ OnePath ultimately issuing the policy.

“We were able to complete everything required – financials and medicals – within the three-week timeframe, finalizing a policy on a Friday and issuing it on the following Monday,” Mr St Clair said. “The quick turnaround proves that when all parties – the management team, the financial planning team and the insurer – are committed to the same outcome, underwriting can take a matter of weeks, not months.”

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