Print Insure is bringing insurance against prepress and digital breakdown to market, adding to its commercial and print breakdown products. And driving the introduction of the product to market is Rod Wickens, whose experience in this field extends back more than 25 years to the first print breakdown products to reach the market.
At that time the industry was dominated by litho printers and, logically, breakdown insurance was about their needs and equipment, providing insurance against unexpected breakdown. In the language of the insurance industry this is SUD protection – Sudden and Unforeseen Damage.
To date, Wickens points out that this has focused on mechanical equipment – presses and finishing equipment – not prepress. That is changing. Wickens is now very much part of what he says is a first prepress breakdown insurance product, aimed at systems from computer to plate to large format inkjet printing.
Print Insure was set up five years ago by Chris Hayhoe and has grown quickly to be among the leading specialist providers of all styles of insurance to the industry. Enter Wickens. He had taken time out for personal reasons when his ideas fermented and came to fruition. Working with Print Insure, he explains, is a logical step. “Print Insure has experts that have first hand experience of working with the printing industry as well as in insurance. We manage the claims in house and focus on achieving very high service levels.
“My role is to develop new products for the market place. It is a perfect fit, a case of being in the right place at the right time,” he says.
The first product is one that suits large format inkjet printers and CTP users. At one time large format printers were a low cost investment with a short ROI. If not exactly disposable, such technology only had a short life before being superseded by something faster and better. Now large format printers are increasingly sophisticated and expensive and it is worthwhile maintaining them, even upgrading them, as necessary.
And this is where the new prepress product fits in. Says Wickens: “Failure is a risk that can affect production and we can offset that exposure with a simple insurance policy with a fixed premium.”
A policy can cover platesetter, processor, Rip, large format printer, whether rollfed or flatbed. It will not cover software nor consumables. He says: “We have taken the approach that has worked in the past and put it into a new and unique product.”
