Spotlight on the breadth and depth of Arrowhead Programs’ public entity programs
Public entities and pools have unique challenges with regards to mitigating risks and exposures. According to Munich RE, public entities are not only wrestling with rising costs of risk in property and liability, but they’re also challenged by inflation and labor shortage.
Enter several Arrowhead Programs companies providing insurance program administration for public entities, pools and other programs coast-to-coast. These include Clear Risk Solutions, Wright Risk Management, Wright Specialty Insurance, and Public Risk Underwriters of Florida, New Jersey, the Midwest and Texas.
PRU Florida writes coverage for Florida’s Preferred Governmental Insurance Trust, which includes municipalities, fire and police departments and schools. PRU of New Jersey administers New Jersey’s Statewide Insurance Fund. PRU Texas administers the Public Educators Association of Texas (PEAT) and specializes in law enforcement liability and public officials and educators legal liability. PRU of the Midwest administers the Indiana Public Employers’ Plan (IPEP), an Indiana nonprofit, self-funded workers’ compensation group of 600+ governmental entities for Indiana public employers. Clear Risk serves the Pacific Northwest, covering Washington cities, rural counties, schools, and non-profit pools and programs. And Wright Specialty Insurance and Wright Risk Management provide property and casualty insurance programs and risk management solutions that meet the specialized needs of schools and government entities nationally.
We chatted recently with executive team members from Clear Risk and Wright to learn how their close collaboration and synergy has expanded their capabilities to fulfill risk solutions across the country.
“We’re able to cover pools and public entities coast-to-coast,” explained Brian Turnbull, president of ClearArrow, a division of Clear Risk. “We bring a lot of premium to the public entity space, and we leverage all the underwriting discipline that exists within Arrowhead Programs. As a result, we’re respected by carriers accepting these accounts. Our underwriting discipline and deep experience help our carrier partners make money by risk selection.”
“Our underwriting profitability makes us very attractive to carriers, while our personalized service and collaborative expertise across Arrowhead Programs sets us apart for our clients,” agreed Becky Holt, compliance officer and business development director for Clear Risk.
“We’ve built a national approach for groups and individual risks that we can tailor to any state,” said Kevin Beer, president of Wright. “We understand that each state has different laws and regulations, and we work with each entity to create the coverage and risk management services that are needed.”
How do our public entity programs differ from others offering public entity coverages?
When asked what sets our public entity programs apart from competitors, Turnbull responded, “Our access to the market. Pooling administrators work with us because their client has a lot more options because of our market access. Our relationships with big trading partners give us access to many more solutions, vs. an agent working only in public entities who wouldn’t have access to these same carriers.”
“Plus, our thorough understanding of the public entity market and being able to deliver to their various memberships a heightened underwriting discipline and risk management expertise allows us to produce excellent results and provide stability to those same pools,” said Kevin Beer. “And we’re very focused on long-term profitability and stability, to help these pools move more successfully into the future.”
The three listed other competitive advantages of Arrowhead Programs’ Public Entity Insurance Group:
- Our underwriting profitability: We deliver to membership a heightened underwriting discipline and loss control discipline.
- We leverage carrier relationships and the spend we have both in the program space and more narrowly the public entity space – a major value-add for anyone looking for a pool risk administrator.
- Our risk management includes pre-risk analysis, inspections, online risk management platform, online or onsite training and employment practices liability consulting.
- We also offer claims reviews to determine goals for loss improvement, claims and personnel issue investigation support for clients and portfolio performance management to protect clients and carrier partners
- We deliver loss control and risk management in a more personalized way, by focusing on data for each pool and generating tailored member performance reports. They’re similar to a report card that shows each pool how they’re performing, providing feedback on areas that need improvement, and then matching them with a plan to help them reduce those losses based on the portfolio of lost control services that we offer. Many of our competitors simply provide their pool risk managers a link to a website with generic advice and training, often with no one offering specific advice. Ours is custom to each of our customers, and we have staff available to answer specific questions.
- Our pooling administrators have access to Arrowhead Programs’ actuarial services and data analytics. Most pools must engage third-party actuaries anyway, typically due to state compliance requirements, but we offer additional services to help manage the performance of our clients.
- The group of reinsurers for public entity pools can be small. But our Arrowhead Programs team works with many other carriers that could be an opportunity for risk pools.
- We’re very collaborative within Arrowhead Programs as far as how we work with carriers. That’s unique in the pooling world. All our leaders in our public entity specialty group meet monthly to stay abreast of the market and share insights that we’ve learned in the past month.
Each company also provides expertise critical to effectively underwriting and administering alternative risk solutions for groups and pools. We review and suggest solutions to help drive profitable results including:
- Equity building and pool/program financial strength
- Solution-oriented underwriting practices and guideline development
- Prevention of adverse selection and maintaining pricing adequacy by member
- Pooling best practices and regulatory compliance
- Coverage structure and alternative risk transfer solutions
- Research and feasibility assessments for group formation or additional coverages
- Educating board members, membership and agents
- Moving pool structures with in-house staff to contracted/supplemental services
- Carrier and wholesale partner relationships
- Rate setting/individual member pricing based on exposure and experience
- Membership performance reviews/application of loss data
- Renewal timeline planning and communication
If you have a public entity or pool risk you need to place, contact Jimmy Curcio, (908) 346-4035, and he will connect you with one of our public entity insurance program leaders.