Risk And Insurance - Power Broker®

Public Sector

2012 Power Broker^® Winners

John Chino, ARM-PE

Area Senior Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Aliso Viejo, Calif.

Broker Has the Ability to Place Unique Risks

John Chino, area senior vice president with Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc., was tasked with complete administration and management of all coverage lines for the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program (ICRMP), a public entity insurance pool with 762 local government members including cities, counties, schools and special purpose districts.

Chino and ICRMP's Executive Director Rick Ferguson met with 15 carriers to market the program. As a result, they were successful in increasing coverage and reducing costs by as much as 30 percent in some cases, for an overall reduction of nearly $1 million.

"John provided expert assistance in identifying and communicating ICRMP's strengths to the market place," Ferguson said.

"His long-time personal relationships with underwriters and extensive knowledge of both the marketplace and public-entity pooling were extremely valuable in bringing us the very best choices."

Matt Hansen, director of risk management for the City and County of San Francisco, said that Chino helps him place some rather unique coverages for such programs as a mobile methadone treatment program and a mobile mammography program. Chino also helps gain coverage for some agencies that have never been insured before.

"These unique placements helped me get in front of underwriters, and Chino helped me tell a compelling story to convince them to insure us," Hansen said.

Karen Cunningham

Account Executive
Aon, Albuquerque, N.M.

A Broker who Loves to Dig Deep

Talk about digging up valuable information for a client!

One of Karen Cunningham's clients, Dona Ana County, N.M., owned land that had been declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency. As such, the county was required to pitch in with the clean-up costs of the contamination that stemmed from back in the 1950s.

Cunningham, an account executive with Aon Risk Solutions, employed a research firm to scour court records, county commission records and other sources to identify several carriers of policies before 1986 that included broader pollution wording and therefore, some sort of potential coverage.

Ed Fridenstine, Dona Ana County's director of risk management, said that he believes the county now knows of 12 policies that could potentially cover the county's portion of the clean-up costs.

"Of course, an insurance company doesn't want to open their books from 30 years ago and start paying, but for the most part, they'll probably end up doing just that," Fridenstine said.

Cunningham has also been helpful in helping Dona Ana County place insurance for a regional waste and wastewater utility agency that's currently being formed out of two existing public entities.

"It's probably not the most desirable piece of business for an insurance broker to do, but she's being very generous in helping us pull it all together," Fridenstine said.

William Deeb

Director
Aon, San Francisco

Broker Acts as Quarterback

William Deeb, director of public entities with Aon Risk Solutions, has a knack for filling coverage gaps and saving money for his clients at the same time.

As the new broker for the California Joint Powers Risk Management Authority, Deeb saved the authority $447,000. How? By marketing its property program, restructuring its auto physical damage program, and by removing clauses which limited the age of vehicles that could be added to the policy. Overall, total year-over-year savings for the authority was $806,161, for all their insurance coverages.

The authority's general manager David Clovis said that Deeb, based in San Francisco, "is very knowledgeable, has a lot of energy, is very prompt in returning phone calls and he is incredibly professional."

"When we were hiring him, one of his references said he walks on water, and so far, I get what they said," Clovis said.

Matt Hansen, director of risk management for the City and County of San Francisco, said that Deeb coordinates all of the brokerage and service offerings within the Aon network. Deep represents the Port of San Francisco on a very large construction project, Hansen said.

"He is consistently going above and beyond for any and all of the business going to him," Hansen said. "He has been our quarterback at Aon."

Kevin O'Donnell, administrator and executive director of the Louisville Area Governmental General Insurance Trust, said that Deeb is "works very diligently on the client's behalf."

Dorothy Gjerdrum, ARM-P, CIRM

Executive Director
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., St. Paul, Minn.

Living and Breathing Brokerage

Dorothy Gjerdrum, executive director of the Public Entity/Scholastic Division with Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc., lives and breathes ISO 31000.

As chairwoman of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to risk management standards ISO 31000 and ISO 31004, Gjerdrum spearheaded adoption of the framework as the American Standard on the Practice of Risk Management. It is now being expanded into an Implementation Guide (ISO 31004).

The ISO 31000 serves as the basis of the enterprise risk management program for the City and the County of San Francisco -- a good thing since the area sits on three major fault lines.

Gjerdrum is working with the city and the county to use the ISO 31000 on numerous projects focused on seismic retrofitting, disaster planning, resilience building and communication. In conjunction with a consultant from the Harvard Kennedy School, Dorothy has made the links between enterprise risk management, disaster planning and resilience.

The San Francisco program has been tapped by the World Bank for use in Jakarta, Indonesia, and other potential cities in Southeast Asia, through the World Bank Urban Resilience Program.

"The ISO 31000 framework was adopted by the U.S. in 2009 as part of the international community effort to provide a consistent framework for the implementation of risk management globally," said Matt Hansen, director of risk management for the City and the County of San Francisco.

Richard Terlecki, CPCU, ARM ARe

Area Senior Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Orlando, Fla.

Managing Risk, Saving Jobs

Cash-strapped states these days are doing everything they can to cut costs, and Richard Terlecki, the Orlando, Fla.-based area senior vice president with Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc., is happy to oblige.

Take Minnesota as an example. With the state facing a $5 billion budget shortfall last year, every department was ordered to reduce expenses by a certain amount or the entire state workforce would face layoffs. Terlecki was able to reduce the state's property insurance premium by almost 50 percent -- in excess of $1 million -- and no one was laid off.

"The brokerage fees that AJG is charging us are competitive and the rate for reinsurance that we purchase has bettered our current rate by a large percentage," said Minnesota's state program administrator Dave Agren. "The combination of a lower brokerage fee and lower cost of reinsurance saved the state a substantial amount of money."

Terklecki also became Texas' property broker in late January 2011 and had to negotiate the renewal program in less than 45 days. He was able to negotiate a reduction in program values by more than $1 million, and restructured the program so that it was the first in Texas to have a "hurricane" instead of the much more restrictive "named windstorm" deductible. Terklecki was able to increase the state of Idaho's earthquake limit to $150 million at a very competitive price, to assuage concerns amidst all the recent natural disasters.