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Blog: Speed underwriting, missed flights and wrong turns

ERS blog yellow ferrari

What do the Mario Brothers, the singer CeeLo Green and members of Qatar’s royal family have in common?

Ordinarily, not much, but they were all in the drivers’ briefing for Gumball 2017 in a damp and wet Riga this weekend.

Just taking a look around the room and the starting grid showed what a cosmopolitan and eclectic race Gumball continues to be, not to mention a huge challenge for an insurer to underwrite.

From men with tattooed faces to a Dodge Charger body wrapped to look like a Lancia rally car, ERS has had to focus on insuring a wide range of both unusual vehicles and such diverse individuals.

Before the 150 amazing vehicles and their excited owners could start their journey to the first stop in Warsaw, all cars needed to be registered and insured.

ERS Blog Dodge Lancia
Dodge dressed as a Lancia

Essential
Astonishingly, many drivers had failed to think about this essential part of the rally.

No insurance – no entry!

To ensure their dreams didn’t die before they’d had a chance to flourish, ERS, was present on the ground to write last minute motor policies on behalf of lead broker PK Partnership, who are providing all of the insurances for the rally.

Team ERS, led by Tom Donachie, head of bespoke and Alan Bradbury, senior bespoke underwriter, were tucked away in a small, windowless room in the basement of the Radisson Blu Hotel ready to come to the rescue.

Tom Donachie and Alan Bradbury
Tom Donachie and Alan Bradbury

Policies
Working from 9am to 9pm on 1 July, they wrote 20 policies for teams, with the support of colleagues back in the UK, making sure that everyone was insured on time to start their epic adventure.

“We been meticulously preparing for this day over the past six months,” says Alan, a huge car fanatic himself.

“We spent months researching the event and making sure we thought through every eventually, to ensure the process ran smoothly on the day and that it was possible to write so many policies in a short period of time.”

Tom comments: “For most drivers entering Gumball, insurance is way down on their list of priorities.

“We knew they were unlikely to be concerned with the small print, so they were putting their trust in us to do the groundwork for them and produce a policy through PK Partnership that suited their requirements.”

Missed flight
Of course, not only was Team ERS underwriting Gumball 3000; it was also participating in the rally, a decision that almost backfired when co-driver and ERS sales director, Alex Hardy, dramatically missed his flight to Riga due to security hold-ups at Stanstead Airport.

He eventually made it, just in time, via Lithuania, courtesy of Whizz Air.

This bumpy start was followed by an unplanned tour of the barley fields of Poland thanks to some dodgy information from Google Maps.

Thankfully the team finally caught up with the rest of the Gumballers in Budapest.

Energised
Since then they’ve been keeping up with the pack and have been energised by some breath-taking scenery and a visit to the Rimac supercar factory in Croatia, which produces the most sophisticated and rarest electric supercars in the world – a potential sign of what’s to come as increasingly advanced techniques eventually filter down through the prestige market.

The Gumballers are now on the homeward stretch, the final destination of Mykonos almost in sight.

Fortunately, there have thus far been no major incidents for ERS’s on-the-ground mobile claims specialist, Matthew Gray to do deal with.

But with Gumball anything can happen – luckily Team ERS are ready and primed for action until the final car crosses the finish line.

For daily updates from Team ERS at Gumball, visit https://gumball.ers.com/ or follow TeamERS on twitter via @ERSmotor

Catch up on the rest of the series

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