Nonprofits Insurance Alliance - 2018 NIA Annual Report

Pamela E. Davis Founder, President and CEO ANI, NIAC, NANI & AMS from the President and the Chairmen Message “...nonprofits were dealt a very difficult hand and found a way to not just survive, but thrive.” As we enter our 30th year of service to nonprofits, we hope we may be forgiven for saying I told you so to all the insurance companies that cancelled, non-renewed, and generally abandoned nonprofit organizations in the mid-1980s over an unfounded belief that nonprofits were “too risky,” “poorly managed,” and thus “uninsurable at any price.” We extend our highest regards and appreciation to the tens of thousands of nonprofits and their insurance brokers who have made possible the success of this unusual cooperative established to solve a problem others claimed intractable. In 1986, the insurance problem was so severe that in California alone, 15 bills were passed to address the issue, one of which established a liability insurance pool for public entities across the state. Nonprofits, daycares, and small businesses were prohibited from benefitting from this public entity pool. Insurance companies didn’t want to insure nonprofits, but that didn’t stop for-profit insurers from opposing other solutions to fix the problem. Instead, another bill, AB 3545, allowed nonprofits to fund and pool their own risks, essentially segregating what were considered the “worst risks” into one nonprofit pool, despite a broad agreement that a pool exclusively for nonprofits was highly unlikely to succeed. As with so many other challenges, nonprofits were dealt a very difficult hand and found a way to not just survive, but thrive. A head for insurance. A heart for nonprofits. 1