|
|
About Us
Dozens of companies offer professional liability insurance to design and environmental professionals. Terra Insurance Company is one of the most successful of all. It wasn't always that way.
Terra came into being in 1969, a product of desperation and ingenuity. Since the mid-1960s, professional liability insurers had been refusing to cover geotechnical engineers. It was reported that geotechnical engineers were the most risk-prone of all professionals, based upon the frequency of claims per $1,000 of gross revenue. Leaders in the field realized that, if they were to obtain the professional liability insurance they needed to survive, they would have to provide it themselves. Then they got lucky. They met Edward B. Howell.
Ed Howell was an innovator. He knew how to set up a small insurance company for the firms that were interested and, more important, he knew what had to be done for that company to last: it had to continually look to underwriting as its principal source of profit, and it had to emphasize the importance of risk management to keep losses low.
To help them manage risk, the engineers created Associated Soil and Foundation Engineers (ASFE), a not-for-profit trade association whose early mission focused on loss prevention. At the same time, they established ASFE Insurance Company, Ltd., a Bermuda-based captive insurance company that offered professional liability insurance principally to geotechnical engineering firms. It required its insureds to be members of ASFE, and to apply ASFE materials and participate actively in ASFE's programs. In 1971, in order to eliminate confusion over which ASFE was which, the insurance company changed its name to Terra Insurance Ltd. (ASFE changed its name, too, in 1985, to ASFE, Inc., to recognize the growing diversity of its member firms' services. Today, ASFE is called ASFE/The Best People on Earth.)
Over the years, Terra worked hand-in-glove with ASFE to develop a variety of new concepts, including limitation of liability and Peer Review. Terra also helped fund the creation of important new materials, such as contract reference guides, audio training tapes, and standard clauses for proposals and reports. The ASFE/Terra relationship remains robust.
The DPIC Companies, also created by Ed Howell, adopted many of Terra's and ASFE's approaches. DPIC was a far larger insurer than Terra, however, and operated "on-shore" rather than "off-shore," offering coverage to consulting engineers in all disciplines (except geotechnical engineering) and architects. In just a few years, Terra became DPIC's largest shareholder (owning about 40% of DPIC's common stock) and held two seats on the DPIC board, an arrangement that lasted through DPIC's acquisition by Orion Capital Corporation in the mid-1980s.
DPIC was also able to count on Terra as a core client, starting in 1972, when DPIC began managing the smaller company's underwriting and claim administration. As the relationship matured, however, Terra's Board of Directors came to realize that the approach of a large, "conventional" insurance company (which DPIC rapidly was becoming) differed from that of a small "specialty" company. Terra ended the relationship in 1984 and, in just a few months, hired David L. Coduto as its Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
A talented insurance executive with a deep understanding of the engineering community (he had been DPIC's treasurer and a director), Dave's first priority was to develop a new premium rating system, a new loss reserve analysis system, and other new management infrastructure components that would enable Terra to function well independently. In fact, it functioned so well that, in 1986, Terra set the PLI industry on its ear by becoming the first PLI carrier in the world to offer environmental insurance to its insureds.
Terra's new infrastructure also helped the firm make the transition from "offshore" to "onshore" operation, a major move made possible by passage of the Federal Risk Retention Act of 1986. The new law enabled the creation of "risk retention groups" that were allowed to bypass a great deal of regulatory red tape in order to provide coverage for "like kind" professional liability risks.
Terra Insurance Company, a Risk Retention Group, was born - or reborn - in 1988, with every share of its stock being owned by its insureds, as required by law. The following year, the Terra Board named Dave president.
Although much about Terra has changed over the years, much has stayed the same, especially its emphasis on client relationships, risk management, and profiting from underwriting rather than its investment portfolio. That philosophy, implemented through outstanding, dedicated management, resulted in Terra earning an A ("excellent") rating from A.M. Best Company, the internationally recognized insurance company rating organization. No other risk retention group has ever been rated higher, and Terra has had the rating renewed every year since 1995. Perhaps an even more telling evaluation factor is this: Since 1990, the legions of competitors that exist have been able to lure away only one Terra insured. Five years later, the firm reapplied and was reaccepted.
Terra's founders had always hoped that the company would serve as a reliable source of coverage for decades to come. While it has done that, it has done even more.
Because Terra looks to profit from its underwriting activities, it works with a prudent rate structure and offers coverage only to firms that are committed to sound risk management principles and practices. Other professional liability insurers seek to profit principally from their investments, making it essential for them to maximize cash flow in order to purchase stock or other investment instruments. When cash flow is enhanced by accepting premiums from firms that would otherwise be uninsurable, and/or by attracting insureds by offering below-cost rates, disaster can lurk around every market turn. Thus it was that, by year-end 2002, virtually all of Terra's competitors reported record losses, as a consequence of poor investment performance, and new highs for claims severity and claims frequency, because they had accepted unreasonable risks. In fact, a number of these competitors - including The DPIC Companies - no longer exist. As for Terra, however, the company's assets had grown to an all-time record high by year-end 2003, while claims frequency and claims severity were among the lowest ever. Somewhat ironically, many of Terra's surviving competitors still refuse to issue coverage to the types of firms that comprise Terra, because, the other insurers say, it's just too risky!
|
|
