The Client

An investment advisory firm managing several billion dollars in assets.

The Problem

On the Friday of a three-day holiday weekend, with the office already closed, the advisor’s compliance team flagged that the firm was out of compliance with its ERISA bonding requirement. He left a frantic voicemail — with everyone off for the long weekend, he assumed it would be days before he could reach anyone, and every day out of compliance was a day of exposure his compliance team wouldn’t let go unnoticed.

The Solution

The Liftman team returned the call from home that same evening. Working remotely, they walked the client through a short ERISA bond application and had it back within a couple of hours. From there, they called the underwriter directly — not a general phone line, but a personal contact built over years of working together — and got a same-night answer: the coverage would be bound the next business day and backdated to the Friday the client had first called.

That meant he could tell his compliance team the gap was already closed before the weekend was even over, instead of spending three days waiting to find out if anyone could help. It’s also worth noting that ERISA bonds aren’t even this team member’s usual specialty at the firm — he handled it personally rather than make the client wait until Tuesday.

The Client

An investment advisory firm with roughly $500 million in assets under management.

The Problem

Late on a Friday afternoon, the firm caught a “fat finger” trade error — a simple keystroke mistake that turned an intended trade of a couple hundred shares into an order for several thousand. With the weekend closing in, the firm wanted to correct the error. The advisor had no clear sense of how quickly it could be resolved, what the right correction even was, or whether the cost would end up covered at all.

The Solution

Because Liftman maintains direct, personal relationships with the claims consultant at each carrier— not just a claims intake line — the team was able to get the firm’s adjuster on the phone that same day. The adjuster spoke with the client directly, walked them through how to correct the error, and confirmed the carrier’s approach: rather than dictating the fix, they trust the advisor’s own judgment on how best to correct it, since the advisor knows the account best. That was exactly the reassurance the client needed.

The claim was ultimately paid in full under the policy’s cost-of-corrections coverage — roughly $200,000 returned to the client — and the firm had a clear plan and peace of mind before the weekend even started, instead of two anxious days of not knowing.

The Client

A smaller investment advisory firm with roughly $100 million in assets under management — a former Liftman client that had moved its E&O coverage to another broker the year before.

The Problem

The firm’s new broker had let its E&O renewal fall through the cracks entirely. The advisor only found out when her own compliance team asked about it, with the policy set to expire in about a week. Digging into what happened, she learned that the intern who’d originally pitched her on switching brokers no longer worked there, and the colleague the account had been handed off to had never followed up either.

When she called the new agency to sort it out, she had to work her way up the chain — the original contact didn’t answer, so she called the front desk, and eventually got someone to admit the renewal had never even been logged as coming due. It left her without coverage in place and without confidence in the broker holding it.

The Solution

She called Liftman, the firm that had handled her account for six or seven years before the switch. The team calmed her down, sent over a broker-of-record letter that same day to bring the account back, and collected a new application to shop the market for the best available policy ahead of her deadline.

What stuck with her, she said, was remembering how the Liftman team used to follow up on renewals automatically — 90 days out, 60 days out, 30 days out, and a call if she hadn’t responded — the exact safety net that had been missing since she left. Liftman got her a policy in place on time, at a price comparable to or better than what she’d had, and the account came back.