EDUCATION

Experience

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Our clients include:

• U.S. Colleges and Universities

• Independent K-12 Schools

• School Consortia

• International Schools in Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Russia

• International Schools in Asia: China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Uzbekistan

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Educational Institutions are complex organizations with a wide variety of risks to students, faculty and staff, facilities and Institutional reputation. We understand the stakeholders, the governance, financial, regulatory, demographic and marketplace issues and limitations that educational institutions face in crafting risk management programs and have a record of developing individually tailored and practical risk management solutions including insurance where appropriate.

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Services

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• Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) assistance: We conduct comprehensive risk assessments and assist schools in developing ERM programs, including establishment and support of a Risk Committee and ongoing use of a Risk Heat Map, Risk Register, and Risk Mitigation Tracker. While we often uncover unique risks of which the school’s administrators were unaware, we have experience with the risk areas common to most educational institutions such as sexual abuse and molestation, student travel and experiential learning, cyber risk, safety and security, and use of school facilities by outside groups.

• Insurance Audits: We provide comprehensive reviews of schools’ insurance programs for adequacy of coverage and reasonableness of terms and conditions, based upon our assessment of exposures to loss and each school’s appetite for risk-assumption. In developing our recommendations, we also consider the coverage maintained by comparable educational institution clients. We examine policy limits, deductibles/retention levels, breadth of coverage including detailed policy terms, conditions and exclusions; reasonableness of premiums; major coverage gaps;

• Ongoing Assistance: We serve in a variety of functions depending on clients’ needs. This may include annual policy reviews and insurance renewal negotiation assistance.

• Contract Assistance: Insurance compliance and opportunities for contractual risk transfer to vendors and service-providers.

• Broker Selection: We evaluate the services provided by the client’s insurance brokers and, when appropriate, conduct a broker-procurement process aimed at selecting an insurance broker with the qualifications, experience, skills, and service reputation that best fits our client’s needs.

• Departmental design and staffing assistance including employee interviews, assessment of use of service providers and technology, and employee education and enrichment initiatives

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Representative Engagements

 

• Large public university with ERM program that stalled - we conducted an updated risk assessment involving all major university departments, reassessed and simplified ERM processes and tools, reassigned certain responsibilities, and generally helped make the program more effective and responsive.

• Large public university, risk management department assessment - we interviewed risk management staff as well as other department staff with whom risk management interacts and recommended improvement to processes, methods and tools.

• Large private university - We assisted in designing a loss sensitive rating program to take better advantage of its favorable historical workers compensation losses.

• Private secondary school, ERM kickstart - we initiated an enterprise risk management program that fit the schools capabilities and resources, conducted an initial risk assessment, and reported findings to the Board of Trustees.

• Private secondary school - we developed a procedures and policies manual for contractual risk transfer, transferring risk to outside vendors by contract.

• U.S. college - we designed safety and loss control protocols for its international study program.

• Independent International Schools in Europe and Asia – We identified, assessed and made mitigation recommendations for the schools’ major risks, including issues related to security, kidnap and ransom, international travel and cyber threats to parents’ financial data.

• Group insurance program - We designed, negotiated and helped to implement an international school’s insurance program that improved coverage while reducing insurance costs by over 35% for some members.

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Value

 

Our clients report that among the benefits they have derived from their use of our services are:

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• Reassurance to the school’s Board of Trustees/Directors that an independent third party has determined that all significant risks are being addressed and mitigated appropriately.

• Confidence that the insurance program is optimized in terms of coverage and premium cost and that the school is not unknowingly exposed to uninsured expenses.

• Establishment and assistance with management of a continuous process of risk identification, evaluation and mitigation involved with all aspects of the school’s campus and operations.

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