edRISK, the group captive for educational institutions in the United States, has launched two new cell programmes for property and general liability and educator’s legal liability.
Previously known as edHEALTH, referencing its first product providing medical stop loss to member institutions, it recently restructured to become a sponsored captive so it could add new lines of business which were in demand from its members.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Global Captive Podcast Tracy Hassett, president and CEO of edRISK, said the organisation is keen to “address the concerns that educational institutions have of the unmitigated insurance costs that they are facing as it relates to keeping a college education affordable”.
The new property and liability programmes went live on 1 June, each being run through an individual cell within its sponsored captive structure and Hassett said they launched the programmes because it was what the members were asking for.
“They are evaluating their expenses and their pain points,” she said. “Between general liability, educator’s legal liability and property, that’s really where the schools are seeing their biggest increases and/or gaps in coverage.
“These have historically been risks that are volatile in terms of pricing and in terms of coverage, so they’re looking to reduce some of that volatility, they’re looking to take on a bit more of that risk.
“And we are looking forward to filling the needs that the schools have been asking us to do.”
Prabal Lakhanpal, senior vice president at Spring Consulting Group, has been a long-time consultant to edRISK and explained that the design and launch of the new cells was similar to the formation of any new captive programme.
“You collect comprehensive data going back a few years, undertake a comprehensive feasibility study to understand how the losses have trended and what that programme could look like coming together,” he said on the podcast.
“As you think about a group programme, a few other additional aspects at play are what is the distribution of risk across the members? What is the correlation of risk between Member A and Member B?
“When we started there were multiple members interested in better understanding how Member A’s risk engages with Member B’s risk. All of those are critical aspects of getting underneath and structuring a successful group programme.”
Hassett said edRISK is not limiting itself to the three cell programmes that are now live and members are already inquiring about other lines of insurance the group captive could support them with in the future.
Auto, cyber, student health and pollution are coverages that have already been discussed and she said she did not believe it would be long before additional cells are added.
“There are so many opportunities out there and so many problems for us to create solutions for long term,” Hassett added.
“Now that we have this structure and we have a core group of educational institutions the opportunities are endless.”