The Template for Success
The Template for Success is an interview-style webinar series on the formation and evolution of Risk Retention Groups (RRGs) and Risk Purchasing Groups (RPGs). Each episode explores foundational topics with guest speakers - from industry experts to RRG executives - to give viewers an overview of how RRGs and RPGs came to be, what it takes for RRGs and RPGs to thrive in changing markets, and the unique benefits and regulatory framework of the RRG and RPG structure.
Episode 1: The Formative Years of RRGs and RPGs (1986 to 1992)
Featuring:
Chris Diemel, Risk Retention Reporter
Nicholas Bozzo, President, Mental Health RRG, Co-President of CRC Wholesale Group (Program Administrators)
Congress creates a Revolution with the Liability Risk Retention Act and the Evolution of risk retention groups (RRGs) and risk purchasing groups (RPGs) begin. With many states initially trying to get in on the act, entities experiment with formations of both RRGs and RPGs, with mixed results.
Meanwhile, our featured RRG in this episode, Mental Health RRG, challenged by the hard market, explains how it began and continues to successfully maintain itself as one of the earliest and most successful RRGs for over 36 years to the present, despite numerous changes in the market place.
Episode 2: RRG and RPG Growing Pains, Ancillary Programs & Survival Rates (1992 to 2002)
Featuring:
Chris Diemel, Risk Retention Reporter
Rod Nofziger, COO OOIDA (RRG)
No doubt prompted by the Revolution, the traditional insurance industry spawns a major “soft market,” characterized by predatory pricing threatening the survival of the young companies. Some RRGs and states retract, leaving only two domiciles.
Our featured company in this episode, Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), founded as an independent trucker’s advocacy group 23 years before the LRRA was passed, fighting unfair legislation and overregulation, seized the opportunity to develop more creative offerings for its members, e.g., lobbying, education, publications and even a Serius XM radio show. Learn how the RRG insurance company became the perfect program to add to OOIDA’s menu of ancillary services causing its successes to date.
Episode 3: The “Explosion”- Knowing and Adapting to your business (2002 to 2008)
Featuring:
Chris Diemel, Risk Retention Reporter
Chris Heckman, Chief Risk Officer, MCIC Vermont RRG
The 911 terrorist attacks shake the nation. The market hardens again, prompting record-setting coverage unavailability and unaffordability, and of course, TRIA. This period saw 69 RRGs grow to 262 RRGs! Domicile states grew from 2 to 9. Medical professional liability grew from 30% of the overall industry to 60%. Coverage needs and business models morphed from state to state, impacted by ever-shifting needs and state regulatory interference. The U.S. GAO naturally gets into the act.
Just prior to this period, however, our major featured RRG success story in this episode, MCIC Vermont, had formed an RRG allowing its original Bermuda captive, established in 1978, to provide additional coverages to its eight (8) major academic medical centers in order to take advantage of the significant flexibility and adaptability of the RRG structure, later to merge into a reciprocal RRG in 2014. Taking advantage of the economies of scale and sophistication of risk management unique to RRGs, MCIC grows to the largest GWP in the industry today, covering also 19,000 physicians and 7500 beds. Listen to how from this story!
Episode 4: Healthcare, consolidations, the soft market and other factors (2010 to 2018)
Featuring:
Chris Diemel, Risk Retention Reporter
Ed Malaspina, CEO, HAI Group, Housing Authority RRG
Cheaper premiums alone will not translate into growth and survival! With the 2008 Crash, growth drops but then magically resurrects in different forms. This objective analysis of the events, however, unveils some of the secrets of the true adaptability of the RRG structure: to a second soft market; the Affordable Care Act; and an unpredicted uptick of mergers and acquisitions. While all taking place simultaneously, the industry begins to transform itself. During this historical melee, transportation emerges and grows somewhat dynamically.
Here the CEO of our featured RRG for this episode: HAI Group, i.e., Housing Authority RRG, formed in 1987, shares with you in plain English the secrets of how this highly successful RRG integrates itself, like a chameleon, daily into the workday activities of their members, helping them actually operate better by training along side of their members’ employees. By engaging in intuitive, user-friendly partnerships with all the players, they share in research, online training, risk management, reinsurance strategies and problem-solving, to minimize exposures and help its major nation-wide housing system work in sync with itself, while bringing public service to yet another level.