The Avanti Group Process

Most business owners don’t find out their insurance is wrong until a claim happens. By then, it’s too late.

We work with high performing business owners who understand that fast quotes and cheap policies don’t protect wealth. Before we quote anything, we run a Business Risk Diagnostic™—a pre-quote due-diligence process that identifies hidden exposure, stress-tests coverage against real operations, and surfaces gaps most agents never look for.

Business Risk Diagnostic™ includes:

Step 1
Risk Mapping: entity structure, operations, vehicles, payroll/class codes, subcontractors, contracts, locations, real estate, and ownership/lease exposure

Step 2
Coverage Stress Test: audit current policies against actual risk scenarios to find gaps, overlaps, and “looks fine on paper” failures

Step 3
Market Positioning: ensure the account is being represented correctly to carriers and priced for your true risk profile—not assumptions

The result is clarity: what you’re actually exposed to, what your current coverage does (or doesn’t) protect, and whether moving forward even makes sense—before anyone wastes time on quotes that don’t matter.

For many of my business clients, risk doesn’t stop at the company. The largest uninsured exposures we see often live on the personal balance sheet—homes, liability, collections, and lifestyle risk. That’s why we also run a Residential Risk Audit™ for clients whose personal assets require the same level of scrutiny as their businesses.

We don’t lead with carriers, quick quotes, or generic bundles. We lead with risk.

If you’re looking for the cheapest option, we’re probably not the right fit. If you value clarity, strategy, and protection that actually holds up when something goes wrong—we should talk.

What we look for in a Business Risk Diagnostic

Several of the line items the Business Risk Diagnostic examines are covered in depth on the Avanti Group blog. These articles map to the specific exposures, policy lines, and renewal-strategy questions we review during a Diagnostic:

• Total Cost of Risk: The Number That Should Replace Your Premium — The number that includes premium, retention, claims cost, and the cash trapped in collateral.
• Loss Runs Explained: What Underwriters See That Owners Often Don’t — Five years of loss data, read the way an underwriter reads it.
• How to Read a Commercial Insurance Declarations Page Without Missing the Sublimits — What’s actually on the dec page—and the lines that decide what gets paid.
• Coinsurance Penalties on Commercial Property: The Clause That Quietly Cuts Claim Checks — How the coinsurance formula trims a claim check when valuation drifts.
• Additional Insured Status on Commercial Liability Policies: What It Actually Buys You — What CG 20 10 / 20 37 actually grants—and what it doesn’t.
• Why the Cheapest Commercial Quote Is Usually the Most Expensive Policy — Three Iowa-style scenarios where the lowest premium hid the largest gap.
• Captive vs Guaranteed Cost vs Large Deductible: Risk Financing Compared — Three risk financing structures side by side—when each one fits and when it stops making sense.
• Policy Language That Quietly Limits Your Coverage: Sublimits, Exclusions, and Conditions — Three places a commercial policy quietly limits coverage—sublimits, named exclusions, and conditions.
• What General Liability Insurance Actually Covers and What It Doesn’t — The three coverage parts of a CGL, the named exclusions, and how per-occurrence and aggregate limits cap what gets paid.
• Per-Occurrence vs Aggregate Limits: Why the Math Matters — Two stacked limits on every CGL — per-occurrence caps a single event, the aggregate caps the policy year, and the math is where renewals get decided.
• Products and Completed Operations Coverage: The Long-Tail Risk Every Manufacturer and Contractor Faces — A separate coverage trigger with its own aggregate, a tail that runs years past the job — and the Iowa statute of repose that finally closes it.
• The Purpose of a Subcontractor Agreement: Risk Transfer Beyond the Certificate — Indemnification, additional insured, waiver of subrogation, and primary/non-contributory — the four operating clauses that turn a contract into real risk transfer.
• How to Demand and Verify Certificates of Insurance from Subcontractors — A COI is a snapshot, not a contract — three endorsements turn it from paperwork into protection.
• How Landlords Use Certificates of Insurance to Manage Tenant Risk — Lease, endorsement, certificate — the three-document system that decides whether tenant risk transfer actually holds.
• General Liability vs Professional Liability: When You Need Both — Two non-overlapping commercial coverages, two triggers, two standards of care — and the professional services exclusion that decides which policy actually pays.
• Damage to Property in Your Care, Custody, or Control: The Coverage Most GL Policies Exclude — The CCC exclusion strips coverage for property of others in the insured’s possession — and the fix is an inland marine placement, not another GL extension.
• Iowa Workers Compensation Requirements Every Employer Should Know — Iowa Code Chapter 85 makes WC mandatory for nearly every employer — here is what the law requires, who is exempt, and what happens to an Iowa business that goes without.
• Action Over Claims: When an Injured Worker Sues a Third Party Who Then Sues You — The exclusive remedy bars the employee from suing the employer — but not the third party who then sues the employer for the same injury. Part Two Employers’ Liability and CGL contractual liability are how the program actually responds.
• Workers Comp Class Code Mistakes That Quietly Raise Your Premium — NCCI class codes route every payroll dollar into an injury-risk pool; misclassification quietly raises premium, and the annual audit is where the cost arrives.
• Return-to-Work Programs That Actually Lower Your E-Mod — Modified duty converts lost-time claims into medical-only claims and shortens indemnity duration — the most direct operational lever a business has on its own experience modifier.
• Workers Comp for Contractors Who Hire Seasonal Help — Seasonal crew is covered payroll, not an exception — here is how to estimate, classify, and document seasonal labor before the workers comp audit reconciles the year.
• D&O for Private Companies: Why It’s Not Just a Public Company Product — Directors and officers insurance is not a public company product: private company owners, officers, and board members are sued personally by employees, customers, co-owners, creditors, and regulators over the decisions they make running the business, and neither the corporate structure nor a general liability policy protects their personal assets when that happens — the claims land in the gap GL was never designed to fill, and Side A, Side B, and Side C divide the protection between the individuals and the entity. First article in the Management Liability cluster.
• D&O Side A, Side B, and Side C Explained — A directors and officers policy is three coverage agreements stacked inside one form: Side A pays individual directors and officers directly when the company cannot or will not indemnify them, Side B reimburses the company for indemnifying its people (how most claims actually pay), and Side C covers claims against the entity itself — and because the three sides usually share one policy limit, order-of-payments provisions and a dedicated Side A DIC layer exist to keep entity defense costs from eroding the protection of the individuals. Second article in the Management Liability cluster.
• What Most Insurance Reviews Miss — Four-part framework most agents skip — the gap between a 15-minute renewal stamp and a real diagnostic.
• 3 Questions to Ask Your Current Agent at Renewal — The three questions that force any agent to prove they’ve been paying attention — or reveal where they haven’t.
• The 12 Months Between Renewals: When to Call Your Agent — Most insurance gaps form in the 363 days between renewals. The short list of life and business changes that should prompt a call now.
• Why We Wrote Your Quote the Way We Did — Two insurance quotes on the same risk are rarely the same coverage. The philosophy behind a diagnostic-first quote.