W&I Insurance: From the Broker's Seat
How the W&I market actually reads a transaction: when to involve a broker, what insurers are really pricing, what gives underwriters comfort, and where AI is starting to change the equation. By Jurimesh, in conversation with Peter Zwijnenburg, Aon M&A.
7
Sections covered
Paper 2
The W&I Series
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Well-applied AI may produce better-quality due diligence, and in doing so takes risk out of the M&A market, partly because it becomes easier to include things that today are left out of scope purely for reasons of cost and labour intensity.
What's inside
- 01
When to bring in the broker
Why the moment you scope your due diligence is the moment to involve a broker, how the European sell-side route makes bids comparable, and what you give up when the broker arrives late.
- 02
What you are selling to insurers
Sector, location, and perceived quality of the target, and how the diligence either confirms that picture or undermines it.
- 03
Where the broker adds value
Why Aon approaches the whole market rather than a handful of known insurers, and how policy terms are pushed past what the SPA says in the buyer's favour.
- 04
Diligence quality and the underwriting call
The defensive phrasing that turns an uncertainty into an exclusion, why asking for an indemnity is self-defeating under W&I, and how underwriters read "we found no issues".
- 05
AI-generated due diligence
What an AI-produced DD report would need before a broker presents it without caveats, why pricing is driven by the target rather than the method, and where insurers are pointing their own models.
- 06
Claims
What separates a claim that settles from one that becomes a dispute, why diligence is the buyer's defence mechanism, and what the annual claims data feeds back into cover.
- 07
One piece of advice
The single thing a PE fund doing its first W&I deal should know, and why the cost now makes it hard to argue against.
About this report
Paper 2 in the Jurimesh W&I Series. Written by Jurimesh, in conversation with Peter Zwijnenburg, who leads the regional team of Aon M&A.
Paper 1 set out what W&I insurance is and how a policy works. This one takes the broker's side of the table: how a transaction gets presented to insurers, which diligence habits win broad cover and which produce exclusions, and what the market expects as AI starts doing more of the reading.
Start with W&I Insurance: A Detailed Guide if you want the policy mechanics first.