The private client insurance advisor is evolving into a strategic risk architect, designing capital-efficient protection tailored to the intricacies of modern wealth.
Anne Mary Mekhael (pictured), vice president at Mekhael Insurance & Financial Services, has seen this shift evolve. Her firm helps high-net-worth clients structure hybrid portfolios that span trust entities, global assets, and business interests.
“Private clients want solutions that are both tailored and interconnected,” she said. “They seek protection that’s not just comprehensive but delivered through a process they can trust.”
This mindset is transforming the advisor-client dynamic. Wealthy clients want more transparent and partnership-based insurance models. “Family offices or ultra-high net worth individuals manage capital, not just cash flow,” Mekhael said.
That shift is driving demand for insurance structures, which stretch to include more complex risks. “We’re more than just insurance professionals,” she said. “They want a ‘risk CFO’ – a strategic partner fluent in the language of wealth continuity, enterprise resilience, and proactive protection.”
She sees direct parallels between the disruption in some private client markets and past hardening commercial property space. “The exodus of some carriers from the high-value residential market is a reflection of what has happened in some commercial property insurance markets,” she said.
With reinsurers potentially driving pricing decisions, underwriters may no longer focus on individual risk but on portfolio volatility.
“Homes in certain wildfire zones or coastal properties are seeing increases of up to three to four times in premiums – or are completely getting dropped,” she said.
For brokers, this means better design, sharper data, and a more architectural role. “Private clients are sometimes being pushed to piece together different policies, excess layers, carrier participation, and sometimes turn to non-standard international carriers,” she said.
Those overlaps become more complex when businesses operate within a network of diverse operations, trust structures, or multiple Holding Companies.
One of the most significant exposures, Mekhael warned, is the failure to coordinate liability across the different entities. “When it’s done wrong, the exposures slip through the cracks. But when done right, it’s often invisible and vital,” she said.
To close those gaps, her agency uses centralized risk maps – diagrams that chart ownership and control across personal, commercial, and trust structures.
“It’s not just about listing risks and policies but instead mapping out the lifeline of the different internal structures,” she said. Proactive collaboration and coordination with FO internal teams, underwriters and specialty markets, including custom umbrella programs that blend personal and corporate risks, is essential.
When coordination breaks down, the fallout can be severe. Mekhael identified three chronic missteps: entity ownership not reflected in policies, multiple different brokers operating without any unified strategy, and clients’ legal counsel or financial advisors unaware of insurance implications.
“The result can be major gaps in coverage and reflected at claim time with potentially denied coverage,” she said.
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As risk profiles grow more intricate, the balance between personalization and efficiency remains important. Mekhael is quick to reject any one-size-fits-all approach to tech.
“Trust and building value remain the foundation of the client experience,” she said. Still, she acknowledges that digital tools matter, particularly for responsiveness and operational ease.
“Technology should not replace the human touch. Instead, it should elevate it,” she said. For Mekhael, tech will always perform best when it supports, not replaces, the advisor.
That kind of segmentation is becoming essential as firms adopt hybrid service models.
Routine tasks like policy documentation or claim updates can be handled digitally, but nuanced risks demand expert human attention. And that expertise must be positioned front and center.
“The advisor is essentially the brand and ambassador for the high-net-worth space,” she said. Technology can assist the advisor, not automate them out of existence.
She’s under no illusion that the private client role will remain static. “Clients expect proactive forecasting of risks, integrated insurance with strategic use of retention, transfer and preventative processes,” she said.
What they want is true protection – delivered with a process, precision, insight, and strategic thinking.
