Tooher Ferraris Insurance Group is the most professional insurance group we have ever worked with for the condominium associations. They are the most helpful and knowledgeable group we have worked with. Their response time is outstanding whenever questions arise or information is needed.
Community Associations
Community Associations Have Unique Risks. Avoid Generic Insurance Solutions.
The least costly option presented by an insurance carrier and Agency that do not specialize in this class of business may often be the costliest in the event of a claim.
Understanding the market, association boards, unit owners and Community Association Managers initiatives are key to securing a comprehensive program that will meet the needs of the association from both a risk management and insurance standpoint.
Selecting Your Agent is the Most Important Part of the Buying Process.
There are many factors to consider when selecting your association’s agent:
- Market access
- Specialized team focused on this unique class of business
- Understand market dynamics having written business through multiple market cycles
- Inhouse claims management team
- Inhouse loss control representative
- Submission Quality and representation of your account to Underwriters
- Template loss control & mitigation programs
Associations Face Unique Exposures That Require Experienced Specialists to Procure the Right Coverage.
Tooher-Ferraris Insurance Group has been a leader in providing community association insurance programs since 1980 by partnering with specialty insurance carriers. Our risk advisors are experts in the design of risk management and insurance programs for community associations.
Our collaborative approach will offer an association a competitive advantage in terms of both coverage and price by helping to reduce their exposure to loss and includes:
- Property Inspections
- Unit Owner Coverage Guides
- Template Risk Transfer Guides
- 24-Hour Preferred Claims Response
- Loss Control Bulletins
- Ongoing Claims Management & Support
- Best Practice Maintenance Standards
- Annual Meeting Reviews with Boards and to unit owners
- Claim Analysis
Our Goal is to Help Associations Maintain a Comprehensive, Competitive Insurance Program Through Proactive Involvement.
We deliver more than just your renewal, we deliver a long-term sustainable insurance program to meet an association’s unique needs.
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- Business Insurance
Here is a question worth asking before your next renewal: Does your general liability policy still cover damages caused by artificial intelligence? For many businesses, the answer is no, and most of them have no idea.
In early 2026, major carriers, including Chubb, Travelers, and Berkshire Hathaway, received state regulatory approval to add explicit AI exclusions to general liability, directors and officers, and errors and omissions policies. According to PYMNTS’ reporting, state regulators approved more than 80 percent of those requests. In several states, the exclusions began taking effect as early as January 2026.
This is not a footnote change. It is a structural shift in what standard commercial policies cover — and it is happening right now, mid-policy-cycle, with little fanfare directed at the business owners most affected.
What the AI Exclusions Actually Cover
The new exclusions are broad. They target bodily injury, property damage, and personal and advertising injury tied to generative AI outputs. That includes defamatory content produced by an AI tool, intellectual property infringement from AI-generated materials, and physical damages traceable to AI-driven errors or recommendations.
What does that look like in practice? Consider a logistics company whose AI-powered routing system makes a recommendation that contributes to a vehicle accident or a professional services firm whose AI-assisted report contains a material error that causes financial harm to a client. Under the new exclusionary language, standard GL and E&O policies may not respond to any of those claims.
The Insurance Services Office, the private body that sets industry standards, introduced two new optional AI endorsements that carriers have been moving quickly to adopt. Some carriers, including Berkley, have implemented absolute AI exclusions across multiple lines simultaneously.
Why This Is Catching Most Businesses Off Guard
The problem is not that businesses are ignoring AI risk. It is that most assume existing policies cover it. AI tools have proliferated across operations, marketing, customer service, hiring, and financial analysis — often faster than legal or risk management teams can track. According to research cited by governance analytics firm Techne AI, 88 percent of organizations are now deploying AI in some form, yet fewer than 25 percent have board-level AI governance policies in place.
That gap between deployment and governance is exactly where insurers are drawing the line. Carriers are not saying AI is uninsurable. They are saying they do not yet know what it costs. Until actuarial models catch up, they are moving the risk off their books and onto yours.
The pattern mirrors what happened with cyber insurance a decade ago. A wave of attacks generated claims. Businesses argued their GL policies covered the losses because cyber was not explicitly excluded. Insurers responded by carving cyber out of standard coverage and building standalone products. That market matured into a $12 billion industry. The AI liability market is beginning the same process — just faster.
What to Do Before Your Next Renewal
The first step is a policy audit. Review your current GL, D&O, E&O, and professional liability policies for any new endorsements or exclusionary language related to artificial intelligence. If your policy renewed after October 2025, there is a meaningful chance this language was added without an explicit conversation.
Second, map where AI is actually being used in your business. Recruiting and screening tools, customer-facing chatbots, financial modeling software, and content generation platforms all carry potential liability. Bias in AI hiring tools alone can trigger Employment Practices Liability claims that your EPLI policy may or may not cover depending on how AI is addressed in the language.
Third, ask your broker specifically about standalone AI liability coverage. Specialized products now exist from carriers including Munich Re, with limits ranging from $2 million to $50 million. Premiums vary widely depending on industry, AI use intensity, and governance controls. Businesses that can document structured AI oversight and bias testing tend to achieve more favorable terms.
The team at Tooher-Ferraris works with businesses across industries to identify coverage gaps before they become claims. Start with a review of your commercial insurance program and ask specifically about AI-related exclusions in your current policies. You can also explore specialty programs designed for emerging and non-standard risks.
For more on how AI governance intersects with D&O and E&O exposure, the Risk and Insurance Management Society publishes current guidance at RIMS.org.
Ready to find out what your current policies actually cover in 2026? The team at Tooher-Ferraris has been helping businesses protect what they’ve built since 1932. Contact us today at https://toofer.com/contact-us/ to schedule a no-obligation consultation.
- Business Insurance
The logistics and transportation industry continues to operate under growing legal and regulatory pressure. Rising litigation costs, nuclear verdicts, and stricter compliance expectations have already reshaped the risk landscape for trucking companies, freight brokers, warehouse operators, and third-party logistics (3PL) providers.
Now, the Supreme Court’s Montgomery decision is creating new concerns around liability exposure and operational accountability.
While courts and legal experts continue to interpret the full impact of the ruling, logistics companies should take this opportunity to review their contracts, compliance procedures, and insurance programs to help reduce future exposure.
Businesses seeking transportation-focused risk guidance can explore solutions through Tooher-Ferraris Insurance Group.
Why the Montgomery Decision Matters
The Montgomery decision may influence how courts evaluate responsibility within transportation operations, particularly when multiple parties are involved in the movement of goods.
For logistics companies, this could affect areas such as:
- Negligent hiring claims
- Driver oversight responsibilities
- Independent contractor relationships
- Freight broker liability
- Vendor management practices
- Contractual risk transfer agreements
Plaintiffs’ attorneys may increasingly attempt to hold logistics organizations accountable for the actions of subcontractors, owner-operators, or third-party vendors, even when those parties are not direct employees.
Independent Contractor Relationships Under Scrutiny
Many transportation companies rely heavily on owner-operators and independent contractors. The Montgomery decision reinforces the importance of carefully structuring and documenting those relationships.
Companies should review:
- Independent contractor agreements
- Dispatch procedures
- Safety enforcement practices
- Branding requirements
- Operational control standards
- Compliance documentation
Transportation providers should also maintain strong compliance with regulations established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), including driver qualification, hours-of-service requirements, and safety monitoring.
If operational control over contractors becomes too extensive, companies could face arguments that those contractors functioned more like employees, potentially increasing liability exposure.
Contracts and Documentation Are Essential
Strong contracts remain one of the best defenses against transportation-related litigation. Logistics companies should regularly review agreements with carriers, brokers, staffing firms, vendors, and shippers.
Critical areas include:
- Indemnification language
- Additional insured requirements
- Auto and umbrella liability standards
- Cargo insurance obligations
- Waivers of subrogation
- Claims reporting requirements
Documentation is equally important. In the event of a claim, transportation companies may need to demonstrate:
- Driver qualification reviews
- Safety training records
- Vehicle maintenance logs
- Drug and alcohol testing compliance
- Incident response procedures
- FMCSA compliance records
Additional transportation safety resources can be found through the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Insurance Implications for Logistics Companies
The transportation insurance market has already experienced significant challenges due to increasing claim severity and rising jury awards. Decisions that potentially expand liability concerns could place additional pressure on:
- Commercial auto insurance pricing
- Excess liability availability
- Umbrella coverage limits
- Underwriting scrutiny
Insurance carriers are likely to continue focusing heavily on safety controls, operational procedures, and claims history during renewals.
Companies with transportation exposures may benefit from reviewing their existing commercial insurance and fleet risk strategies with specialists who understand the industry’s evolving legal environment.
Final Thoughts
The Supreme Court’s Montgomery decision serves as another reminder that logistics companies must remain proactive when it comes to risk management, compliance, and operational oversight.
Organizations that strengthen contracts, improve documentation, enhance safety procedures, and regularly review insurance programs will likely be in a stronger position to manage future legal and financial risks.
At Tooher-Ferraris Insurance Group, we work with transportation and logistics companies to help identify emerging exposures, strengthen insurance strategies, and support long-term operational resilience.
- Employee Benefits
Picture this: it’s open enrollment season. Your HR manager — who is also your office manager, your compliance point person, and the person who orders coffee – is fielding the same 47 employee questions she answered last year. Meanwhile, three employees chose the wrong plan because they didn’t understand how the deductible worked. Two more never enrolled at all.
This used to be the price of being a small or mid-size employer. You didn’t have a benefits technology budget. You worked with what the carrier gave you: a PDF, a 1-800 number, and a prayer.
That’s changing fast and in 2026, it’s changing in ways that actually matter for employers with 25 to 500 employees.
What AI Benefits Tools Actually Do
Let’s be specific, because “AI” gets attached to every product description regardless of what the technology actually does. In benefits administration, the tools earning the label fall into a few practical categories.
Decision support at enrollment
AI-driven recommendation engines analyze an employee’s life stage, dependent status, and historical plan utilization to guide them toward better plan choices during open enrollment. Platforms like Bswift’s Emma and Employee Navigator’s decision support tools now serve mid-market clients — not just enterprise — and have demonstrated meaningful improvements in plan selection accuracy. According to Clarity Benefit Solutions, AI enrollment guidance can increase HSA contribution rates by 15-25% through better education during the enrollment process alone.
Year-round benefits Q&A
Instead of employees calling HR to ask whether their dentist is in-network or whether they can add a dependent after a qualifying life event, AI chatbots handle these queries in real time, around the clock. The Hartford’s 2026 Future of Benefits Study found that 95% of employers said they want digital tools for routine, transactional tasks — freeing HR staff for the complex issues that actually need human judgment.
Compliance monitoring and eligibility validation. AI systems can flag eligibility anomalies, track ACA reporting deadlines, and monitor regulatory changes across jurisdictions before they become audit findings. For a small HR team without a dedicated compliance specialist, this is where the ROI is most immediate.
What’s Actually Affordable Now
The pricing shift is real. Platforms like Gusto, BambooHR, and Employee Navigator all offer AI-assisted benefits administration at per-employee-per-month pricing that puts the technology within reach of employers who couldn’t consider it two years ago. SHRM’s 2026 State of AI in HR report found that AI in HR is now present in 21% of organizations in the HR technology practice area — and growing. The same report found that 87% of CHROs expect greater AI adoption within HR processes in 2026, up from 83% in 2025.
The pattern from The Hartford’s research is telling: 54% of employers say HR technology and benefits platforms are “highly influential” in selecting benefits carriers and vendors. The technology has moved from back-office tool to strategic differentiator.
What to Ask Before You Buy
Not all AI benefits tools are created equal. Before evaluating any platform, get clear on three questions:
- Does it integrate with your payroll system? A benefits platform that doesn’t talk to your payroll creates more manual work than it saves. Ask for a specific list of HRIS and payroll integrations before any demo.
- Who owns the data, and how is it protected? Employee health and benefits data is sensitive. Understand where your data is stored, whether the vendor uses it for model training, and what happens to it when your contract ends.
- Where does the human support kick in? The best implementations combine digital self-service for routine tasks with experienced specialists for complex claims, disability leave, or sensitive situations. A chatbot that handles open enrollment questions well is a feature. A chatbot that handles a difficult disability claim poorly is a liability.
Your HR technology consulting and HCM consulting teams are the right starting point for navigating the vendor landscape — especially if you’re evaluating platforms alongside a benefits renewal. The technology decision and the benefits strategy decision don’t happen in isolation anymore.
An HR team of two can now administer benefits like a team of twenty. The tools are here. The question is whether you’re using them.
Ready to explore what AI-powered benefits administration looks like for your organization? The team at Tooher-Ferraris has been helping businesses work smarter since 1932. Contact us today to schedule a no-obligation consultation.
- Business Insurance
Picture this. It is a Tuesday morning and your business cannot operate. Not because of a fire. Not because of a flood. Your primary SaaS platform — the one your entire billing and order management system runs on — is down. The vendor says it could be 48 to 72 hours. Your team is sitting idle. Revenue has stopped.
You call your broker expecting the business interruption claim to be straightforward. It is not. Your standard BI policy has a trigger most business owners never ask about: physical damage to property. No damage occurred. The coverage does not respond.
This is not a hypothetical edge case. It is one of the most significant and least-discussed coverage gaps in commercial insurance today, and it is becoming more relevant every year as businesses build their operations on top of third-party platforms, cloud services, and AI-powered tools they do not own or control.
Why Standard BI Policies Were Never Built for This
Business interruption insurance was designed in an era when the primary threat to operations was physical, such as a warehouse fire, a burst pipe, or a hurricane that takes out a roof. The policy logic made sense: prove physical damage to insured property, document the lost income during restoration, and collect the claim.
That model has a fundamental mismatch with how businesses actually operate in 2026. According to the Insurance Information Institute, supply chain and business interruption risk ranked as the second-highest concern among businesses globally — and a growing share of those interruptions have no physical damage component whatsoever. Cloud provider outages, ransomware that triggers a vendor shutdown, SaaS platform failures, and AI system crashes are now among the most common causes of operational downtime — none of which trigger a standard BI policy.
The problem is not new. When a single container ship blocked the Suez Canal in 2021 and disrupted global supply chains for weeks, thousands of businesses discovered that their contingent business interruption policies did not respond to cargo delays without physical damage. The ensuing litigation forced the industry to clarify what it would and would not cover — but for most SMBs, the lesson did not translate into a policy review.
The Products That Fill the Gap — and Who Needs Them
Two coverage types address non-physical business interruption risk, and most small and mid-sized businesses have neither.
Contingent business interruption (CBI) coverage extends BI protection to losses caused by disruptions at a supplier, vendor, or key customer — even without physical damage at the policyholder’s location. For businesses with concentrated vendor dependencies, CBI is not optional risk management. It is core program design.
Technology errors and omissions (Tech E&O) coverage, often paired with a cyber liability policy, addresses operational losses caused by software failures, cloud outages, and technology service interruptions. As businesses embed more AI and SaaS tools into daily operations, the line between a cyber event and a technology failure is increasingly blurry — and the coverage that responds is increasingly specific.
Swiss Re Institute has flagged non-physical business interruption as one of the fastest-growing accumulation risks in commercial insurance, noting that AI and cloud outages can propagate through supply chains in ways that create correlated losses across industries simultaneously. That systemic exposure is exactly why carriers are paying close attention to how these risks are structured — and why businesses cannot assume standard coverage fills the gap.
The Question to Ask Your Broker Today
The conversation is simple: what triggers my business interruption coverage, and what does not? Walk through the three or four operational scenarios that would cause the most serious disruption to your business — a key vendor going down, a cloud platform outage, a software failure during peak season — and ask explicitly whether each one would trigger a claim. If the answer to any of them is no, you have identified a gap worth addressing before it becomes a loss.
Tooher-Ferraris reviews commercial insurance programs with exactly this kind of scenario-based analysis. For businesses with complex vendor or technology dependencies, our risk management consulting approach helps identify where your current program has structural gaps and what coverage options exist to fill them. Learn more about specialty programs that address non-standard and emerging exposures.
The Insurance Information Institute publishes detailed guidance on contingent business interruption coverage at III.org, and RIMS.org maintains current risk management resources for business continuity planning.
Ready to find out whether your business interruption coverage would actually respond when you need it? The team at Tooher-Ferraris has been helping businesses close coverage gaps since 1932. Contact us today at https://toofer.com/contact-us/ to schedule a no-obligation consultation.
- Personal Lines
May is Mental Health Awareness Month — a time to talk openly about what weighs on people. And right now, one of the heaviest weights is money.
A 2025 study found that 69% of Americans say financial uncertainty has made them feel depressed or anxious — up 8 percentage points from 2023. Nearly two-thirds say it has disrupted their sleep. Nearly half report that it has affected their job performance. These aren’t abstract statistics. They describe how a significant portion of the population is actually living.
This year’s Mental Health Awareness Month theme from Mental Health America is “More Good Days, Together” — a recognition that wellbeing is built through stability, connection, and a sense of control. Insurance, at its core, is one of the few tools that directly addresses the financial unpredictability that fuels so much of that anxiety.
The Link Between Coverage Gaps and Mental Health
The connection between financial insecurity and poor mental health is well-documented. A 2025 CDC analysis found that depression rates are roughly three times higher among lower-income Americans than higher-income groups — and financial stress, regardless of income level, compounds that risk.
Among the most anxiety-producing financial exposures are the ones that are sudden and uncontrollable: a major home insurance claim after a storm, a car accident that triggers a lawsuit, the loss of income following an illness or injury. These aren’t low-probability hypotheticals. They are the events that personal insurance exists to address.
Nearly 1 in 3 homeowners say they’re not confident they can maintain adequate insurance coverage through 2026. Only 19% of Americans have individual disability insurance, despite the fact that 1 in 4 workers will face a disabling condition before retirement. These gaps don’t just represent financial risk — they represent a persistent background hum of anxiety for millions of families.
What ‘Adequate Coverage’ Actually Feels Like
There’s a meaningful psychological difference between having insurance and knowing your insurance is right.
Many people carry policies they set up years ago and haven’t reviewed since. Their dwelling coverage may no longer reflect current rebuild costs. Their auto liability limits may be far below what a serious accident could generate. They may have no income protection if a disability keeps them out of work for six months.
The anxiety that comes from not knowing whether you’re actually protected is different from the anxiety that comes from a known, specific gap. The first can be addressed by doing a comprehensive review. The second requires closing the gap.
A Mental Health Month Prompt Worth Taking
This May, the most concrete mental health action many families could take has nothing to do with therapy or mindfulness apps. It’s a 30-minute conversation with an insurance professional.
Are your home and auto liability limits still appropriate for where your life is now? Do you have income protection if you couldn’t work for three months? Six months? Is your life insurance coverage sized for your current obligations? Are there gaps you’re quietly aware of but haven’t addressed?
The goal isn’t to spend more on insurance. It’s to close the gaps that are generating low-grade financial anxiety — often in exchange for surprisingly affordable protection.
Our personal lines team and life insurance advisors are here to help you move from “I think I’m covered” to “I know I’m covered.” That shift is worth more than most people realize — including for your peace of mind.
Ready to replace financial uncertainty with real clarity? The team at Tooher-Ferraris has been helping families build stable financial foundations since 1932. Contact us today to schedule a no-obligation consultation.
- Business Insurance
Commercial auto insurance has been painful for a long time. Premiums have risen for more than 28 consecutive months. Claims severity has climbed 64 percent since 2015, driven by rising repair costs, medical inflation, and an increasingly litigious environment. For businesses with even a handful of vehicles on the road, the annual renewal conversation has become an exercise in bracing for bad news.
But something is changing in the way carriers approach that conversation — and businesses that understand it have a real opportunity to stop passively absorbing increases and start doing something about them.
The shift is toward telematics, and it is no longer optional for fleets seeking competitive pricing.
From Safety Perk to Underwriting Input
For years, telematics — the real-time collection of driving data through devices that monitor speeding, hard braking, rapid acceleration, and distracted driving behaviors — was promoted primarily as a safety solution. The concept was straightforward: safer driving habits would lead to fewer accidents and lower risk. While the reasoning made sense, adoption among small and mid-sized fleets remained inconsistent.
That dynamic has changed. Carriers are now using telematics data as an active underwriting factor at renewal. Fleets that share verified driving behavior data can qualify for premium discounts of 10 to 15 percent, according to data published by Munich Re and confirmed through recent carrier programs. Fleets that decline to share data are no longer treated neutrally — in many cases, they are assessed more conservatively, because insurers interpret the absence of data as an absence of risk management.
The SambaSafety 2026 Driver Risk Report, drawing on nearly 50 million motor vehicle records and 28 million telematics events, documents the gap clearly: the behaviors driving commercial auto losses have not improved despite years of awareness efforts. The difference between fleets that are closing that gap and those that are not is increasingly a technology and process question.
AI Dashcams: The Highest ROI Investment Per Mile
Within the broader telematics category, AI-enabled dashcams have emerged as the single highest-return investment available to fleet operators on a cost-per-mile basis. The math is straightforward. A dashcam unit runs approximately $500 per vehicle. In the current litigation environment, where a single nuclear verdict can exceed $50 million, documented exoneration footage is worth far more than the device cost in any contested claim.
Beyond the defensive value, AI dashcams generate the coaching data carriers want to see. Forward-facing cameras document road conditions and incident context. Interior cameras establish driver attentiveness at the moment of impact. Combined with telematics, the data package creates what insurers describe as a defensible risk narrative — documentation that a business takes driver behavior seriously and has the records to prove it.
According to the American Transportation Research Institute, improper hiring allegations alone increase expected nuclear verdict awards by more than 272 percent. A documented driver qualification and coaching program directly reduces that exposure. Telematics gives you the paper trail.
What This Means for Your Next Renewal
If your fleet has not had a telematics conversation with your broker in the past 12 months, that conversation is overdue. Carriers are actively differentiating at renewal between fleets with data-sharing programs and those without. The question is no longer whether to adopt telematics — it is whether you are getting credit for the data you already have, or whether the data gap is costing you at renewal.
A few practical steps to take before your next renewal: audit your current loss runs for claim patterns that telematics would have flagged early; review your driver qualification files for documentation gaps that create litigation exposure; and ask your broker whether your carrier offers a telematics-linked pricing program, and if so, what data they want to see.
Tooher-Ferraris helps businesses with vehicle fleets review their commercial insurance programs and identify where risk controls translate directly into premium outcomes. For contractors and specialty trades, our specialty programs team can work through fleet exposure alongside your broader coverage structure.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks commercial transportation injury and fatality data at BLS.gov, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration publishes carrier safety scores that underwriters actively review.
Ready to get your fleet’s risk profile working in your favor? The team at Tooher-Ferraris has been helping businesses protect their operations since 1932. Contact us today at https://toofer.com/contact-us/ to schedule a no-obligation consultation.