As an insurance and alternative risk finance specialist, I have spent many moments in the boardroom discussing the benefits and deficits of guaranteed cost insurance and its many alternatives. I have witnessed many eyes glazing over when the alternatives are discussed. A brave, enterprising CFM once asked me, “You mean standard insurance is not complicated enough, you have more moving parts?”

He later confessed that risk alternatives were never taught in his formal accounting education at a high-ranked business school. Realizing that many CFMs were ill-prepared to discuss the alternative solutions because they had no comfort level with them, the road map on how to talk about guaranteed cost insurance alternatives was born.