There is a lot of focus these days on the difficulties homeowners, renters, as well as large organizations who exist to provide housing services to our communities, such as affordable housing developers, are having finding and affording property insurance. In fact, I noticed that Governor Hochul has recently touted captive insurance as a way to provide more access and affordability for insurance for affordable housing. The Governor is also providing assistance to nonprofit affordable housing owners to help them make the repairs necessary to enable them to meet the requirements of being part of a captive. Captive International published a great article on this recently. A great idea!
Unfortunately, small nonprofits, like the ones I work with leading the subsidiary insurance brokerage of New York Council of Nonprofits (NYCON), just can’t take advantage of the sort of captives touted by Governor Hochul, like their larger brethren. These smaller organizations also struggle with price increases, coverage restrictions and outright cancelation with little options as they are not large enough to meet alternative market option requirements. However, there is language drafted and pending in Congress that would help small nonprofits nationwide, and particularly in NYS, benefit from captives without any cost to NYS. It’s called the Nonprofit Property Protection Act (NPPA). Without any expenditure of government funds, it would give small nonprofits the access they desperately need to insurance options enjoyed by large nonprofits and large for-profits. Why should there be any opposition to nonprofits creating their own solution to this well-known problem?
I hope that New York’s Congressional Delegation will show their support of community-based nonprofits through support of the NPPA. We need this bill to become law this year. We have no time to waste.
Peter Andrew is the President/CEO of Council Services Plus.
