What is the typical insured-property threshold for a Private Client engagement?

Most engagements involve households with a combined insured-property value beginning around three million dollars. The carriers we represent for private client business have appetite minimums in that range.

How does the Cornerstone Coastal™ program work?

It is a coordination methodology — synchronizing deductibles, hurricane-percentage definitions, and renewal effective dates across two or three carriers writing different properties for the same household.

Do you write standalone flood?

Yes. Most coastal-exposed households need excess flood beyond the NFIP $250,000 cap. We place it through Chubb, PURE, AIG Private Client, and Marsh Specialty depending on location.

What is replacement-cost coverage versus guaranteed-replacement?

Replacement-cost rebuilds the home at current construction cost up to the policy limit. Guaranteed-replacement rebuilds it regardless of the limit, subject to the policy's underwriting requirements. The latter is the standard private-client form across Chubb, PURE, and Vault.

Are historic and architecturally-significant homes underwritten differently?

Yes. They require code-upgrade endorsements, period-correct reconstruction language, and a custom replacement basis. Chubb's Masterpiece form and PURE's High Value form both accommodate these requirements.

Coastal & Estate Property Insurance — Ashford Whitcombe & Partners

Property is the largest line in most private-client programs and the line where the most consequential underwriting decisions get made. The replacement-cost basis, the hurricane-percentage deductible, the code-upgrade endorsement, the scheduled-property forms for fine art and jewelry — each affects whether a claim is paid in full or partially.

The firm writes residential property programs across Chubb, PURE, AIG Private Client Group, Vault Insurance, Berkley One, and Cincinnati Specialty Private Client. We select the carrier per household, not by default — the household's profile, location, claim history, and the specific exposures of each property dictate the placement.

Most private-client households we serve carry coverage on multiple homes: a primary residence in Greenwich or another Fairfield County town, a secondary home on the Connecticut or Rhode Island coast, a third home further afield in Aspen, Vail, Naples, or abroad. Each home is a separate placement; together they form a program.

That program is what gets read in the Ashford Review™. The most consequential coverage gaps we surface are not from missing endorsements — they are from policies that don't coordinate with each other.

What we typically write

Primary residence: Replacement-cost, extended-replacement, or guaranteed-replacement basis. Building, contents, additional structures, loss of use, personal liability. Standard underlying for the personal-umbrella tower.
Secondary and seasonal homes: Vacancy and unoccupancy endorsements (most carriers require active monitoring or periodic occupancy for unoccupied periods over thirty or sixty days). Water-leak detection requirements for coastal homes are now common.
Coastal-exposure properties: Hurricane-percentage deductibles (typically 2% to 10% of dwelling value), named-storm windstorm definitions, hurricane-haul-out endorsements for tenants of mooring-adjacent properties.
Historic and architecturally-significant homes: Code-upgrade endorsements (modern code may require materials and methods the original construction did not anticipate), period-correct reconstruction language, custom replacement-cost basis reflecting handcraft and salvage requirements.
Scheduled personal property: Fine art, jewelry, watches, wine, firearms, musical instruments, and antique furnishings. Scheduled separately with appraisal-backed valuations, agreed-value settlement, and worldwide coverage. Updated as the collection changes.
Excess flood: Beyond the NFIP $250,000 cap, placed by location through Chubb, PURE, AIG Private Client, or Marsh Specialty. Most coastal-exposed Northeast properties need this — the NFIP cap covers only a fraction of replacement cost.
Service line and equipment breakdown: Underground service lines (water, sewer, electric, gas, internet) up to the street, often excluded by the basic homeowner form; equipment breakdown for HVAC, geothermal, and home-system electronics.

How we structure coastal programs

The Cornerstone Coastal™ program — formalized by Margaret Whitcombe-Lockhart in 2022 — coordinates two- and three-carrier coastal programs so that the household carries synchronized deductibles, hurricane definitions, and renewal effective dates across all properties.

The typical failure mode we see in coastal programs we acquire from other agencies: the primary home is insured at one effective date with a 2% hurricane deductible; the coastal home is insured six months later at a 5% hurricane deductible by a different carrier; and the household has no idea the carriers define "named storm" differently. We have seen this configuration produce, in a single Category 1 event, a five-figure deductible the household did not know it was carrying.

We close those gaps by re-marketing both policies to land them on the same effective date, harmonizing the deductibles where possible, and documenting the deltas where harmonization is not possible.

A coastal homeowner who insures the primary residence with one carrier and the coastal home with another, on policies that renew six months apart with mismatched windstorm deductibles, is exposed to gaps that no one is contractually responsible for closing. We close those gaps.

Carriers we use for property

Chubb Masterpiece

Cornerstone Agency since 1991. Chubb is the firm's most-used private-client property market — guaranteed-replacement cost basis, deep appetite for coastal, the most experienced claims-handling operation in the HNW segment.

PURE Insurance

Cornerstone Partner since 2008. Member-owned reciprocal, with a meaningful dividend back to members in low-loss years. Strong appetite for $5M+ insured-property households.

Vault Insurance

Appointed 2015. The ultra-high-net-worth specialist — appetite begins around $5M in insured value and extends well beyond. Custom underwriting on architecturally-significant properties.

Berkley One

Appointed 2018. Newer in the HNW space but with deep family-owned-carrier discipline. Particularly strong for households with marine, equestrian, and aviation exposures alongside the property program.

AIG Private Client Group

Appointed 1998. The legacy HNW market. Still a frequent placement for households with international exposures and complex tax-jurisdiction property holdings.

Cincinnati Specialty Private Client

Diamond Agency since 1976 (Cincinnati Insurance umbrella). The Cincinnati Specialty Private Client form is our most-used market for households whose insured property falls in the $2M–$5M range — appetite the larger HNW markets sometimes decline.

Property coverage for primary, secondary, coastal, and historic homes.