Why Choose All Risks: Guiding Principles

Independence

All Risks is dedicated to remaining an independent wholesale brokerage firm. As an independent wholesale broker, our success is in total alignment with our independent retail insurance broker clients. We will not compete with them through any of our operating units. We forgo the opportunity to distribute products on a direct basis, with the belief that we cannot credibly serve as partner and competitor.

Independence also gives us a competitive advantage. Our private ownership structure allows us to make management and investment decisions without concern for market perception's impact on short-term share price. Our focus is on building the strongest organization possible, not boosting quarterly earnings. We will make decisions that create the greatest long-term benefit for the organization and its employees.

A cost of independence is that we have no holding company safety net. Our security is 100% based on our shared commitment to All Risks' success.

Our Partners

As the nation's premier independent wholesale insurance broker, our business will be conducted as a three-way partnership by joining with our Clients - retail insurance brokers who allow us to find the proper markets for their insureds and our Carriers - the strategic partners where we place our business.

Our Client Partners

All Risks is customer focused. We will work to understand the needs of our retail broker clients and be structurally organized to meet those challenges. Our goal is to have our clients think of us first when they attempt to place a risk into the specialty insurance marketplace.

We offer our clients a broad spectrum of solutions with emphasis on four areas: Contract Binding, Proprietary Specialty Programs, Large Account Brokering and Specialty Personal Lines. We recognize that the markets, skill sets, and infrastructure necessary to support these initiatives vary significantly. Dedicated specialists will attend to these specialty areas. Through careful focus and resource allocation, we will become the best resource available to our clients in these given fields. In each of our specialties, our customers should expect and receive service that exceeds all other available resources.

We carefully select our broker client partners and we allocate resources where our abilities and interests best match. Our operating units will manage their retail distribution force independently. We will select only professional, financially sound retail brokers who support a partnership with All Risks and agree to meaningful volume goals. We will promote an agency review program that holds our broker clients accountable for their commitments and measures them against a set of mutually developed standards. We will use surveys and marketing tools to assess our consistent delivery of world-class service to which we have committed.

Our Carrier Partners

We will focus on generating profitable results for our carriers. We will seek to consolidate our business with those who value the wholesale distribution system and have identified wholesale brokers as their principal marketing resource. We commit to our carriers that we will always provide all pertinent information we have regarding any risk being submitted to them. We will never be guilty of failing to furnish information that is germane to underwriting a risk, simply because the underwriter did not ask us the right question.

We work with our carriers to form the deepest partnerships possible. We will work to expand our existing contracts to drive more profitable business to our carrier partners. We expect that our carriers will recognize the benefits of partnership with our agency by considering us a preferred client and to evidence this through a fair compensation structure, assistance in broadening our product base and joint efforts to improve efficiencies. We will expect that our partners will help to facilitate our goals by supporting our expansion wherever possible. On a timely basis, we will review our carrier relationships to identify which carriers consider All Risks a preferred client, so that we can better focus on those relationships.

Our Employees and Our Spirit

All Risks continues to develop an atmosphere that makes it the best place to work in the insurance industry because of the way people are treated. Each of us together helps to create and nurture that atmosphere. We expect all of our team members to exhibit the following characteristics: honesty, integrity, honor, hard work, ethical behavior, courage, commitment, professionalism, loyalty, collaborative participation and a positive attitude toward the way we conduct our business. All Risks offers an exciting and challenging environment that combines hard work and fun. We will pursue only the best and brightest talent and will provide compensation commensurate to their performance.

We will continue to hire people new to the excess and surplus lines business, invest in their career education, and assist them in development of a social bond with their coworkers and the organization. We also associate high performance with meaningful non-financial benefits such as time off, parties, dinners and other bonus incentives when appropriate. We continue to support initiatives such as the All Risks' Spirit Committee.

Our Expectations

Management has set a number of expectations for the company to attain:

• 25% Annual Growth
• 25% Minimum bottom line return
• $1 billion in premium by 2008

Our unique culture, our guiding principles, and the dedication of our employees will allow us to accomplish these goals.

Open Doors/ Open Communication

We promise to maintain an open environment. Our management structure will be built on the fewest tiers of reporting relationships possible with members of management accessible to all employees at all times. We foster a culture of open communication and teamwork throughout all operating units, where every employee will not only know that management listens, but also one in which they will have contact with the senior management team several times annually. We expect our team members at all levels of the organization to be outspoken leaders in charting the best direction for their segment of the organization.

Building for the Long Term

All Risks believes in controlled, managed growth. We will seek to grow organically and through acquisition. We believe we can fuel growth by the development and aggressive marketing of our products and through the expertise of our employees.

Expansion into additional states and territories will continue. We will target areas that represent a concentration of opportunity for the type of business that we write. States that have a high amount of surplus lines premiums are our priority.

We will target teams with specific product expertise, niche areas and programs that we believe can withstand long-term market fluctuations while delivering profitable returns to our carrier partners. We continue to build offices around great teams of employees who embody the All Risks' characteristics. Despite the emphasis on growth, we will always protect the foundation of All Risks and not jeopardize what has been built thus far. We will not over-extend financially or assume debt where we cannot pay for these initiatives from current profits.

Whenever possible, we will correlate payment for performance in all levels of the organization which will include offering bonus incentives to non-production employees for their individual performance that is above and beyond the salary expectations of the job. This will challenge all employees to allow us to do more with fewer people and will help build retained income and not headcount. This will further insulate us from market downturns. Metrics will be developed and distributed to all employees who impact financial performance bringing together the connection between compensation and job performance expectations.

Management will avoid building a large bureaucracy. We will seek to keep senior staff and senior administrative support to a minimum. We will regularly review our corporate administrative expenses in comparison with their utility in helping to facilitate sales growth. While our infrastructure must support our employees, goals and growth, we will seek to reduce support costs as a proportion of our retained commissions. Quality control and information technology will emphasize excellence and efficiency allowing us to do more with less. Senior management will lead the direction of quality control and information technology investments. While we expect that support infrastructure will facilitate sales growth, we do not expect that it will drive sales growth. We will regularly review these expenditures to compare their value in relation to expense.

Our philosophy is to operate our company in a manner that will, as best possible, level the cycles of the insurance business. We will continue to focus on building an organization with many diversified revenue streams. From a financial standpoint, we will not allow the company to become disproportionately dependent on any one facet of operations. Using budgets as a guide, we will continue to test annually our ability to withstand the downturn of specific production units with an eye toward the overall financial strength of All Risks.

Accountability and Entrepreneurship

The attainment of All Risks' goals requires an entrepreneurial, yet disciplined approach to the way we conduct our business, where results are measured regularly and we hold each other accountable for the commitments that we make. We will expect individuals and teams working within the corporate structure to view their role as building their own businesses within the company, leading them to take proprietary interest, initiative, and responsibility for their ventures.

Our employees will make rapid decisions based on what the facts are and not what we want them to be. We will make decisions based on our experiences and our knowledge of the facts at hand.

It is management's promise to All Risks' employees to be involved, focusing on leadership toward accomplishment of the principles listed in this document and the goals of the organization, but not to be so intrusive as to stifle individual entrepreneurial spirit and initiative.

Dedication to Our Principles and Culture

We are unwavering in our dedication to these guiding principles. They are the foundation for our long-term success. We understand that our business changes and we will continually re-examine our focus, our initiatives and our investments to be certain that they are in alignment with market demands, using the guiding principles as our roadmap.