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President
RCM&D, Bethesda, Md.

Giving Good Counsel

SIGMA, a Virginia-based trade association for motor-fuel marketers, last year approached Patrick Allen Haney, president of the nonprofit division of Riggs, Counselman, Michaels & Downes, with the idea of developing an insurance program for its members.

Haney evaluated the ins and outs and ultimately advised against the idea, said Kenneth Doyle, SIGMA's executive vice president.

Haney's advice spared the association the embarrassment of a failure, as well as the time and money it might have poured into trying to make the program work, Doyle said.

"Allen has always been able to come to me and tell me when we need to do something different, or come up with a new idea, or tell me that what I want to do is dumb. I've heard him say over and over again, 'I'd really like to sell this to you, but I'm not sure you should buy it,' " he said.

Other policies from Haney have been a great fit. For instance, the broker worked with SIGMA to figure out the coverage it would need for an upcoming trip to Brazil. As a result of his work, the nonprofit secured event interruption coverage, as well as coverage for ransom and kidnapping.

"Allen and his group walked us through that and got it quickly," Doyle said.

For other nonprofit clients, Haney has fine-tuned benefit programs. One nonprofit had balked at Haney's recommendation that it switch to a 401(k) plan, fearing the impact on its existing, 40-year-old plan. But after five years of discussion and research, the group is making the change, which is expected to increase plan participation by 25 percent over the next two years.

For another client, Haney went to bat to fix an old deferred compensation plan and key insurance program for one of the client's key executives. After doing a thorough risk analysis, Haney and his team were able to help the key executive to receive his benefits on a tax-free basis.

At the same time, the key person insurance policy was rewritten to enable both the nonprofit and the executive's family to be protected should he pass away.

Haney's customer service philosophy is built on the maxim of "purpose before product". One technique that he uses is responding to a client's e-mail either with a phone call or a personal visit. This technique breaks down the distance that electronic communication can create.

Haney is heavily involved in industry groups, having been a major force in the Washington, D.C. chapter of the CPCU for years.

Executive Director
Frank Crystal & Company Inc., New York

Broker Acts as a Decider for Decision Makers

With 10,000 affiliates of varying size and scope around the country, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America is an insurance market unto itself. It fell to Scott Konrad to develop a national insurance program for the Atlanta-based nonprofit and, more importantly, to educate its affiliates so they can make better insurance-buying decisions.

"He works with us to get them to choose to work with a limited number of insurance providers," said Les Nichols, vice president of club design and safety for Boys & Girls Clubs. "He's also provided a very innovative approach to looking at what motivates buying decisions on the part of our affiliates."

Affiliates' annual budgets range from less than $500,000 to more than $10 million, Nichols said. Not all purchase directors' and officers' insurance, for example. But the lack of coverage, or even low limits on coverage, can pose a barrier when recruiting board members. To address concerns, Konrad can have affiliates look at other products or tools, Nichols said.

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., is another nonprofit that has benefited from Konrad's assistance. In early 2011, Konrad worked with the foundation to fix gaps in an existing insurance program, enhance global protection, address emerging risks -- and produce savings of nearly 10 percent.

His customer service also is top-notch, said Tami Ward-Dahl, a vice president of administration and human resources with the foundation. "If I email him a question I can almost guarantee within an hour there is an immediate response and solid follow-up, even if it's passed to someone else," Ward-Dahl said.

In March of 2011, Frank Crystal staged its first-ever Nonprofit Risk Management Forum, drawing nearly 100 senior executives representing the largest nonprofits headquartered in the New York Metro region. The morning-long event, which Konrad conceived as a targeted informational and networking opportunity, earned high praise from attendees for its timely, actionable content and positioned Crystal for a variety of new potential engagements. Konrad replicated the event in San Francisco in October.

Buyers have directly felt the impact of Konrad's presence in other ways. In less than a month on the job, Konrad attended the annual Nonprofit Risk & Finance Summit (organized by the Washington, DC-based Nonprofit Risk Management Center) and emerged with an opportunity to advocate for a leading global HIV/AIDS research and prevention foundation with an intricate risk profile in Africa.

Managing Director
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Itasca, Ill.

Broker Always in Pursuit of Value

Churches are often seen as havens. But they offer little protection from a hardening market for property insurance. For that, churches have the Bishops' Plan Insurance Co. -- and broker Peter Persuitti. He was a catalyst in helping the company, known as BPIC, develop an enhanced property program that pools insurance purchases of diocesan clients around the country.

The program's advantage is clear to one client, an executive who handles insurance for a diocese on the West Coast.

"You're more likely to be able to get better coverage when the market hardens," said the executive, who described Persuitti as creative. "He thinks outside the box."

His creativity fuels educational initiatives that benefit clients around the country. Recent initiatives include a white paper produced by BPIC on fraud, using the experiences of churches themselves.

"When churches read about the issue in context of another church, it's more likely to resonate with them," the diocesan executive said.

In addition to his work with BPIC, Persuitti co-hosts an event known as the Convocation, which serves risk managers and other insurance buyers in dioceses around the country. "I think putting that together as a support for us as risk managers who have no other network to interface with has been hugely beneficial," said Michael Witka, director of risk management/parish financial services, for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

Another group germinated by Persuitti is Common Ground, said Witka. Common Ground brings together representatives from multiple denominations and religions once a year to discuss global issues affecting them all and to share best practices.

Witka and Persuitti also co-lead the Risk Managers Forum, an online networking group. The two are working on a webinar that will document the past four years of their work together, gathering insights from the field and promoting this important work of the Church--risk management. They record these webinars and invite those working for dioceses who have the role of safety and risk management, and they give them a platform for networking, dialogue, sharing and collaborating.

Part of Persuitti's strength as a nonprofit broker is that he served in leadership positions in the nonprofit sector prior to his time as a nonprofit practice leader for Gallagher and for Munich Re, the reinsurer. Persuitti stays in touch with his former profession as private school administrator by being an avid reader of educational professional journals.

Principal
Integro Insurance Brokers, Boston

Broker Scrambles to Fill a Gap

A risk manager for a worldwide religious organization ran into a gully early last year when a change in management at his main carrier suddenly left him with a big hole in the insurance program with only couples of weeks to fill it.

The first task for Alexander Reath, principal with Integro Insurance Brokers, involved getting a month-long extension.

"Because of the unique mixture of our exposures, which include office, residential and printing facilities all on the same site, we received a number of declinations," the risk manager said. "Alex talked to the carriers with the incumbent excess layers and convinced them to participate in a quota share program with a lower bottom limit starting at the $15 million level, which left us a $12 million gap in our program of the primary limit."

Reath went to the London and Bermuda markets and found some interest, but only at a major price increase.

"About a week before the extension was to expire, Alex was able to present us about six options for insuring our risk," the risk manager said. "At the end of the day, we kept our same limits and deductibles, and had our main carrier in place with their fronting capability globally."

Reath's network of contacts enabled him to present numerous options during that white-knuckle period. "He even engaged some alternative markets to the standard property market, and was able to obtain sufficient capacity to give us options to consider while keeping the pricing within our budget constraints," the risk manager said.

For a client that had Florida-only property exposures, Reath ran RMS and AIR models that confirmed what he suspected, the client was dramatically over-purchasing windstorm limits. The over-purchasing of insurance was having a direct impact on the profitability of the client's operations.

On behalf of the client, Reath went directly to the owner of the property and the owner's insurance consultant to arrive at a solution. After a month of communication with the property portfolio owner the owner and their insurance consultant agreed to amend a legacy lease which had called for the over-purchase of insurance.

The amount of the reduction in required coverage was 25 percent. The savings the client realized as a result of Reath's work were significant and will come into play on subsequent renewals.

Area Senior Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher Co.
Doral, FL

Executive Vice President
Willlis
Columbus, OH