Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
November 2005
Justin Case, like all other good insurance brokers, wanted his clients to be safety conscious.
by George L. Head, Ph.D. American Institute for CPCU So Justin at first welcomed the unexpected offer from his long-time friend, Bob, the owner of Omega Refuse (whose garbage trucks had "We Put an End to Your Trash Problems" painted on their sides). Justin understood that Bob's offer stemmed from the very serious fire that had burned Bob's garbage disposal facility to the ground last year. Bob always had been rather careless and sloppynot good traits for someone in the trash collection and disposal business. Justin hoped that Bob's offer signaled his new interest in better risk management.
Bob's Offer
Bob's offer was to pay Justin a $1,000 monthly retainerbeyond and apart from Justin's regular insurance commission income from the Omega accountjust to keep Bob posted on fire-safety innovations that might prevent or quickly extinguish any more fires in Bob's newly rebuilt facility. This sounded like Bob was finally getting serious about fire risk management. But this offer to Justin contained a crucial proviso: Justin could not share his fire safety findings with anyone particularly not with Frank, Bob's arch business rival, the owner of Alpha Garbage Services ("Alphathe First Word in Trash Management"). Bob explained that the separate retainer he was offering Justin each month made whatever new fire safety information Justin found that month Bob's exclusive proprietary information, at least relative to any of Justin's present or potential clients, most especially Frank.
Justin's Dilemma
Justin realized he would have several ethical problems accepting Bob's offer:
First, Frank was also one of Justin's clientssomeone with whom Justin had a professional duty to share the best information Justin had about fire safety in trash management. Second, Justin felt he had a duty to avoid endangering the entire town, which he believed he would be doing if he withheld from any of its residents whatever fire safety information he might find in working under the retainer Bob was offering. Third, Justin felt that the arrangement Bob was proposing would force Justin to wrongfully withhold significant information from the insurer which was covering both the Omega and the Alpha trash removal firms. Justin recognized that, if he had been an agent for this insurer rather than a broker, he definitely would have been in violation of his agency duty to act in the insurer's best interest. He would have had to tell both Bob and Frank everything new he learned about fire safety in trash management. But even as a broker, Justin felt he would be withholding key information from the insurer if he did as Bob was asking Justin to do, thus jeopardizing Justin's long-term relations with this insurer.
Still, Justin saw he could not just reject Bob's proposal outright, telling Bob to go find fire-safety innovations on his own.
First, left on his own, Bob probably would not do anything more about fire safety, so his new facility would remain as hazardous as the original one, endangering both Bob's operations and the entire town. Second, discouraging Bob from practicing better fire safety would not be in the best interest of the insurer and, more broadly, of that insurer's policyholders, among whom the financial burden of Bob's likely future fire losses would be spread. Third, spurning Bob's initial, if inept, efforts to manage Omega's fire risks better probably would discourage him from trying any broader risk management practices for combating other perils and losses.
1. Does Justin have a right to not share this information with anyone, because no one neither Bob, nor Frank, nor their insurerasked Justin for this information? 2. Are there any circumstances under which Justin should give this fire safety information to just one client, either Bob or Frank, but not to the other? (I've argued above that one client's paying Justin a special fee for this information is not such a circumstance. However, there may be other sets of circumstances in which withholding the information from either Bob or Frank would be ethically properI'm not sure yet.) 3. If Justin learns that Frank (let's say) really has developed, on his own without Justin's or anyone else's help, some proprietary information on fire safety in trash management, what should Justin, as a true risk management professional interested in effective risk management for the entire community (however broadly or narrowly defined) do? Personally, I think Justin should urge Frank to make his proprietary information public to the world, but I'm an educator, not a business person of any kind. Please tell me what you think Justin should do.
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