I Heart Nonprofits

It began as a thesis by a student in the Graduate School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. In 1986, the thesis was published by the California Community Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation, and just three years later, the Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California began operations as the first member company of the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group.

Niche insurance companies are often made up of the same types of people that the insurance company serves. In the case of the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group, based in Santa Cruz, California, all companies in the group are themselves 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. During 2006, group written premium was $57.6 million.

“Unlike some niche markets, ours is very broad with one million nonprofits across the country,” explained founder, president, and CEO Pamela Davis – and author of the graduate school thesis. “Our intensive focus on nonprofits enables us to become very familiar with their particular exposures and allows us to focus our energies on meeting their special insurance needs.”

The Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group is comprised of:

Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California – California risk pool for California nonprofits
Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, Risk Retention Group – risk retention for nonprofits in 22 states and Washington, D.C.
National Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance – property reinsurance captive
Alliance Member Services – service company housing all staff and serving all companies

According to Davis, independent brokers and agents place all of the Group’s business. Additionally, the Group provides a variety of in-person, in-writing, and web-based loss-control products and services, including driver training in both Spanish and English. The Group also provides a series of low-cost webinars to members on topics such as safety at special events, contracting with care, residential treatment risks, and preventing sexual abuse. “We publish on the web and in hard copy a series of booklets on topics of special interest to nonprofits,” added Davis. “We also have a secure members’ website with a variety of loss-control resources, and recently, we developed a low-cost, web-based board tool called BOARDnetWORK, which enables boards of directors of member-insureds to interact over the web.

“We think that nonprofits are the best clients in the world,” said Davis. “They do amazing work on often very limited budgets, and do so with surprisingly few accidents. It is particularly rewarding to offer loss-control resources to them that they would not otherwise be able to afford. And, best of all was returning a dividend of $3.7 million to Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California’s member-insureds this year. It was quite an honor to return this money to nonprofits and know that they would use it toward their good work.

The Group’s byline? “A Head for Insurance, A Heart for Nonprofits.”

Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 12:00:00 AM. Modified: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 3:43:47 PM.

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