Holistic risk management: agents and brokers offer services to help consumers deal with a changing world.

As people become vulnerable to new and increasingly complex risks, the personal insurance marketplace has begun to shift beyond indemnification for loss toward a more holistic risk-management approach. After all, insurance does not eliminate risk but provides some monetary compensation in the event a risk turns into a loss.

Fortunately, independent agents and brokers can now provide their customers with a growing number of insurer-provided services to prevent risks from becoming losses, and mitigate losses before they turn into disasters. Insurers--especially those with large numbers of affluent customers--are offering a broader array of risk-management services, enabling agents and brokers to provide as seamless protection as possible.

Several societal trends over the past decade have expanded the number and intensity of personal risks. Combined with the growing severity and frequency of natural catastrophes, the world has become a much more dangerous place. Technological developments such as the Internet and cell phones expose users to cyber crimes and liabilities. Americans face terrorism, political instability, indigenous diseases, and cultural and legal barriers as they travel more often around the world.

Even everyday risks appear to be intensifying: In 2004, the U.S. Justice Department reported that a stranger committed a burglary or a violent crime in one out of every 26 households.

Although insurers, agents and brokers always have helped customers manage their exposures, loss control has been more prevalent on the commercial side of the business. A few personal lines insurers, such as Chubb, offer in-house services: For the past 25 years, for example, Chubb's residential appraisal unit has helped customers identify and mitigate various security, fire, water damage and other household risks. Insurers frequently have provided their customers with information on protecting their property and families prior to and following storms and natural catastrophes. In recent years, many insurers have begun to offer services to help customers recover from identity theft.

Now insurers are adding personal security, travel security, emergency medical services, personal staff risk management, and collections-management services to their personal loss control capabilities. Customers no longer have to search through a confusing maze of service providers and purchase these services individually, with costs potentially adding up to several thousand dollars. Some insurers are even providing the services on a complimentary or discounted basis. And most important, these services, when combined with appropriate insurance coverages, can create the type of holistic risk-management program many affluent individuals require to navigate today's risk-prone environment.

Working through insurers, noted security consultants are providing personal insureds with diagnostic assessments of their susceptibility to such risks as home invasion, kidnapping, identity theft and loss of life or property. Continuously -updated Web sites provide an analysis of travel security "hot spots" and airline safety and airport security track records. Emergency medical services are available to airlift an injured insured out of a remote location to a Western medical facility or help an insured who suffers a heart attack while yachting.

Attorneys specializing in employment practices law regularly provide information, training, sample policies and forms to help protect insurance customers and their families from litigation, violence, theft, fraud and other losses associated with nannies, cooks and other personal staff members. Background investigations can also help assure customers that they've hired a personal staff composed of competent and trustworthy individuals. Additional services are helping customers manage their collections of art, jewelry and other expensive possessions.

Frankly, all the coverage in the world will never truly replace the intangible value of a family heirloom or a priceless work of art. Nor will the most comprehensive health insurance revive a family member who has died following a snowmobiling injury in a remote vacation spot.

Adventurous vacations, home invasions, thefts, and lawsuits by personal staff are just a few things placing not only clients' assets, but also their well-being, at risk. For some risks, insurance protection may not always be available, or it may be too expensive to make sense.

Luxury risk-management service packages can fill the voids and, in many cases, give customers a double layer of protection: a system to eliminate or minimize risks, and financial protection if losses do occur. Agents and brokers who offer these packages can help their customers manage risks more comprehensively and holistically--a value-added approach virtually nonexistent among direct writers.

Andrew McElwee, a Best's Review columnist, is executive vice president of Chubb & Son and chief operating officer of Chubb Personal Insurance, Whitehouse Station, N.J. He can be reached at [e-mail].