The parties

A promoted prize is a chain of contracts between businesses, with the reader standing outside all of it. Sorting the six roles is what tells a reader which letter to answer and which party to ignore.

Open the partner account Read a promotion first

Slip stub

Owes the reader: the promoter, and only the promoter
Never owes the reader: the broker, the insurer, the reinsurer, the adjuster
Named in the promotion: the promoter
Named in the policy: the promoter as insured, the insurer
Sample chain: one broker, one insurer, one reinsurer

the perilOne stated act that must happen for the prize to be owed - and the estimate of how often it has

the retentionThe largest prize the promoter funds from the promoted product’s own margin, before any cover responds

the coverA schedule of twelve fields that indemnifies the promoter, and is never a reader’s protection

Desk The Cover Slip, cycle 62 · Page the parties to the arrangement · Reader’s counterparty the promoter alone · Behind it a broker, an insurer and above an attach point a reinsurer · On the ground a loss adjuster, who decides nothing about the winner

Direct answer The promoter owes the reader the prize, because the promotion is the promoter’s term. The broker, insurer, reinsurer and adjuster are parties to the promoter’s own contracts; none of them has a duty to the reader and none of them can be relied on to pay a winner directly.

Six roles, one duty owed outward

The promoter, who owns the promise

The promoter published the offer, so the promoter owes the prize. It is also the named insured on any schedule, which decides the direction of the money: the insurer pays the promoter, and the promoter pays the winner.

The broker, who places the risk

A broker arranges the cover and is paid for it, usually by commission on the premium. A broker acts for the promoter and not for anybody else, and its advice to the promoter is not a statement about who will win the promotion.

The insurer, whose obligation runs one way

The insurer indemnifies the promoter against the defined peril up to the limits on the schedule. It is not a guarantor of the promotion. If it declines a claim, the promoter still owes the prize and the dispute is between two businesses that both have lawyers.

The reinsurer and the adjuster, further away still

A reinsurer stands behind the insurer above an attach point and never speaks to a promotion. A loss adjuster investigates and reports; it decides nothing, and its report is a document in the promoter’s claim rather than a decision about a winner.

A reader who writes to any of the last four roles is writing to a party with no relationship to the offer. That is not a procedural detail: it is the difference between a complaint that can be answered and one that cannot.

Which party answers which questionquestion answerable by have I won? the promoter, against the promotion's words when will I be paid? the promoter, against its published term was the peril verified? the promoter; the adjuster only advises it why was the insurance claim declined? the promoter, if it wishes to say, and the insurer to the promoter - a reader is not a party to it what is the aggregate limit? nobody, on the reader's side: it is not published roles with a duty to the reader: 1 of 6

One name on the promotion is worth more than five names behind it. The promoter is the only party whose identity a reader needs, and it is also the only one the promotion is obliged to give.

promoter owesbroker placesinsurer indemnifiesadjuster advises

When it goes wrong

Declinature, dispute and what the reader can still do

Reading a promotion

Eight questions, starting with the name of the promoter