During the liability crisis of the 1980s, nonprofits were having trouble obtaining liability coverage. In addition to overall market conditions, a few cases of sexual abuse had pushed insurers even further away from insuring nonprofits.
In 1987 Nonprofits Insurance Alliance—which includes Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC) and Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, Risk Retention Group (ANI)—Founder, President, and CEO Pamela Davis gave testimony at the California Assembly on the challenges nonprofits were facing obtaining liability coverage. According to the testimony, between 1984 and 1986 25% of California nonprofits saw a premium increase of 200% or more and 20% of California nonprofits had their policies nonrenewed or canceled.
Davis wrote her 1987 master’s thesis on the potential of forming a risk pool for nonprofits that would allow the nonprofits to self-insure. Two years later Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California launched.
“The first day NIAC opened its doors we had $40,000 in the bank. We had a million in loans for capital that we couldn’t touch for operations,” said Davis. “We also didn’t have any committed nonprofits, we just had people that had expressed interest.”
By the end of its first year of operation, NIAC had added 300 nonprofits and wrote $1 million in premium. “There was a lot of desperation at the time. Many of the nonprofits that we were working with were tiny and couldn’t obtain coverage,” said Davis.
NIAC now includes 11,195 nonprofits in California and wrote over $100 million in premium in 2021. As NIAC saw success throughout the 1990s other state nonprofit associations inquired if they could join.
This is an excerpt , for the complete article subscribe to the Risk Retention Reporter.