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Vice President
Aon Hewitt, Edmonton, Alberta

Broker Delivers a Triple Play

It's hard enough coming up with a business solution that satisfies a single entity. Perry Dorgan, vice president, health and benefits for Aon Hewitt Canada in Edmonton, Alberta, crafted an arrangement that pleased three organizations.

His work began when the Alberta Retired Teachers' Association asked him to assess the incumbent third-party administrator of its benefit plan and, if necessary, find a new one. ARTA's plan provides a mix of health and wellness benefits to 8,500 retirees.

"We needed a partner with more flexibility to ensure the integrity of our plan," said Daniel Mulloy, ARTA's executive director.

That partner was closer than the association realized. On Dorgan's advice, ARTA selected a consortium that includes the Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan, which already served active teachers. Although the plan was in front of ARTA's noses, it wasn't an obvious choice, Mulloy said. "It really took Perry to kind of look at the potential there."

The new arrangement enhances services for retired teachers, Mulloy said. And it strengthens the association's outreach to teachers on the cusp of retirement. Over the years, ARTA has lost potential members because they didn't hear about it soon enough. Mulloy said, "Having everything in one shop really allows us to get to every teacher and allow them to make an informed decision on whether they want to come into our plan or not."

Active teachers, as well as the benefit plan, also are pleased with Dorgan's work, said Gordon Thomas, executive secretary of the Alberta Teachers' Association.

Senior Vice President
Aon, Denver

In a Class of His Own

Finding little interest in the insurance market, other brokers were recommending self-insurance for the directors and officers at a for-profit educational company. Denver-based Rik Goyton, senior vice president with Aon Risk Solutions, kept pushing, however, and he came up with a one-of-a-kind directors' and officers' policy.

"It was probably one of the more challenging, I think, issues that we had to deal with," said Rob Sepanski, a former risk manager for the company, Ability Holdings Inc., which operates trade schools. For-profit educators have faced scrutiny from federal regulators over the last few years, exposing the companies and their executives to risk and making insurers leery. Self-insurance was not an option for Ability Holdings, given the potential exposure it faced, Sepanski said.

Sepanski credits Goyton with tackling the challenge head-on. "He's got the tenacity to pursue and contact all the insurance carriers that we needed to. A lot of them were not going to touch this stuff," Sepanski added. "He finally rounded up at least a half dozen that would talk to us." It took a series of meetings and calls between Goyton, Ability, the insurance carrier and outside attorneys in 2012. The result was an affordable manuscripted policy. "I'd have to say, Rik, he's in a class of his own," Sepanski said.

Another former executive at Ability also thinks well of Goyton. "I have the highest regard for Rik and what he did for me and Ability Holdings' board," the executive said.

Executive Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher, Greenwood Village, Colo.

Rearranging Programs Under Tight Deadlines

After years of piggybacking on policies purchased by the state government, the parent of Oregon's seven state universities was in the market for its own insurance coverage and risk management services.

But the Oregon University System, which has 52,000 employees and 100,000 students, didn't have much time to get it done.

Outside observers were concerned about the time frame, which was just a few months in the first half of 2012, said Ellen Holland, the system's chief risk officer. But Executive Vice President Karen Graham and her team at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. beat the tight deadline, collecting masses of information and working through several obstacles to achieve better-than-expected results.

"We did it with more robust coverage, with higher limits, and more tailored to higher education than the system has ever had before," Holland said, praising Graham for her persistence. It's not the first time Graham has helped a state university craft an insurance program that is better than the one it would have as part of state government.

"Karen just has a very, very good reputation, and I think it's well-deserved," said the insurance and claims director at another university that has benefited from Graham's expertise.

Most recently, she helped that university deal with the civil liability implications of an off-campus criminal event and with complicated coverage issues related to private development.

Area Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher, Chicago

A Broker With Scope

Before anyone could peer through the telescope that a group of universities planned to build in the mountains of Chile, school officials had to focus on the potential risks. Eric Pan, area vice president with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in Chicago, was the broker who helped sort them out and put together insurance coverage.

He tapped contacts in London as well as in Chile to ensure protection for the university consortium, which included schools in the United States, Canada and Germany. "It was a little more unique than most people would run into, that's for sure," said Craig McAllister, director of risk management and insurance for Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., which is taking the administrative lead on the telescope project, known as CCAT.

McAllister praised Pan's innovative thinking and customer service, saying, "It's always top-notch service."

The stars have aligned for other clients as well. One university risk manager lauded Pan for lowering the deductible while maintaining coverage and pricing on a major line of coverage. He also assisted the university while it transitioned to a self-insured automobile physical damage program and negotiated a multiyear rate guarantee on another major line of coverage.

The risk manager at a Midwestern university credited Pan with offering guidance that led to fewer claims for workers' compensation. "Eric Pan and the team at Gallagher have been available and quick to respond to our questions and concerns, and their team's industry knowledge and customer service have been second to none," the risk manager said.

Area Executive Vice President
Arthur J. Gallagher, Chicago

Pushing Underwriters for Better Coverage

Every semester, Kalamazoo College in Michigan sends a large share of its students overseas. But after political protests in Greece and the Middle East, an earthquake in New Zealand and the tsunami in Japan, college officials began wondering how to bring students back home in an emergency.

They turned to Chicago-based Bill Powell, area executive vice president for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., who found an evacuation program that could be tacked onto the school's foreign liability coverage at a relatively low cost, said Joseph Brockington, associate provost for international programs at Kalamazoo, a liberal arts college with about 1,400 students.

"I can't ask my staff to do this out of our office in Kalamazoo, and I'm not alone," Brockington said. "A lot of the colleges and universities in the U.S. are moving toward getting evacuation coverage."

And some of them have asked Brockington how he did it. "I said, 'We have Bill Powell.' Bill's really good at this."

Powell has served Kalamazoo in other ways as well, college administrators said. For example, he helped make the case for ensuring international insurance coverage extended to students and faculty who were not necessarily traveling under the auspices of the study-abroad program. Powell also has pushed underwriters to deliver what the college would like to see in its policies.

Managing Director
Arthur J. Gallagher, Baton Rouge, La.

Unwavering Commitments to Finding Solutions

The Cameron Parish School Board and the Federal Emergency Management Agency weren't seeing eye to eye on the distribution of payments related to hurricanes Ike and Rita. After nearly three years of negotiations, school Superintendent Stephanie Rodrigue handed the matter to Nancy Sylvester, managing director of the Public Entity and Scholastic Division of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

"It had nothing to do with Gallagher. It had nothing to do with her. She just said, 'Let me help you with this,' " Rodrigue said. After a few months of research that included salvaging documents thought to have been lost in the storm, Sylvester helped Cameron Parish and FEMA arrive at a solution.

"I've never worked with anyone so customer-oriented," Rodrigue said.

Rodrigue also appreciates Sylvester's expertise in education, her knowledge of public entities, and her expert handling of insurance issues overall. "Whether it's a liability issue, a voluntary health issue, she puts resources at our fingertips to assist us in making some very important and potentially expensive decisions," Rodrigue said.

Another education client in Louisiana recently called on Sylvester to soften a premium increase for property coverage. "She basically was there, step by step, throughout the whole process," said the school system's risk manager. Sylvester assisted the same client in finding a third-party administrator for its workers' compensation plan. Sylvester helped draft a request for proposal and sat in on interviews with potential vendors.

"Nancy has helped us in so many ways that it is hard to imagine she has time for anything else," said the risk manager.

Managing Director, Higher Education Practice
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
Itasca, Ill.

Executive Director, Higher Education Practice
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
Glendale, Calif.