"The economic environment and credit environment have had a major impact on real estate factors," Jeffrey Alpaugh, a managing director of Marsh and leader of the firm's global real estate practice, tells GlobeSt.com. "The debt markets are frozen and fewer buildings are trading, and a result, many real estate investors are focusing on asset management and decreasing costs within their portfolios." The result, he says, is that many clients are restructuring their insurance programs to decrease the premium costs.

Among other things, real estate firms have amended terms of their insurance programs, increased retentions and reevaluated the amount of property catastrophe coverage they purchase, according to the Marsh report. "We're seeing that the biggest total cost of risk for real estate firms is property insurance," Alpaugh says. "When we look at their overall premium spend and divide it out, it could be 60% to 70%."

In addition, "as investors are looking at their overall portfolio, they want to make sure they're meeting lender requirements," says Alpaugh. "As they're going out and buying buildings, many of the loans have covenants that stipulate the insurance requirements. There could be certain limit requirements: in California, it's earthquake insurance; in Florida, it's hurricane insurance, in New York, it's terrorism."