An insurance gap is invisible by nature: it doesn't send an invoice, doesn't ask for a renewal, doesn't announce itself. It speaks up exactly once – when it turns into a claim, and it turns out nothing was covering it. The gap hunt makes this silent risk visible while things are still calm.
- Gaps don't appear at random: they grow along with change – whatever is new in the company is typically uncovered.
- The method of the hunt is the cover map: going through each risk and asking which contract answers it.
- Not every gap needs closing – but you need to know about all of them, and decide.
Where do gaps breed?
Experience points to five breeding grounds. New things: a machine bought last year, a site opened this year, an activity just starting – policies cover the past. Border zones: home-office equipment, stock stored at a partner's, leased assets – wherever responsibility is split between two parties, often neither of them insures it (home office, leased vs. own equipment). Items that started small and grew big: stock that was once negligible and is now the company's main asset. Conditional cover: things that are covered in principle, but in practice aren't because of an unmet condition (alarm, maintenance, notification). And people: key-person risk and the team's accident protection are most often a completely empty band.
The method: question the map, row by row
The gap hunt is a matter of method, not inspiration: the cover map forces the question row by row – which contract answers this risk, up to what limit, under what conditions? Where the answer is "none", there's a gap. Where the answer is "maybe this one, but I'm not sure", there's a gap too: uncertain cover comes to light at claims-settlement time, and that's an expensive way to learn. That's when you need to check the policy wording – the method for reading policy wording helps with that.
What to do with the gaps you find
There are three honest answers. Cover it: if the risk is large and the cost of cover is proportionate. Carry it consciously: if the loss is absorbable – a legitimate decision, as long as it's made explicitly. Reduce it: through prevention, process, or contractual arrangement – loss prevention is often cheaper than a policy. What isn't an honest answer: not knowing. The gap hunt is one half of a portfolio review – the other half is the mistake in the opposite direction, the overlap hunt.
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