Since becoming chief executive officer of ProAssurance in July 2019, Ned Rand and his executive team have managed to reduce operating costs by nearly $20 million while continuing the company’s efforts to scale up.
The Birmingham, Ala.-based company has made five strategic acquisitions since 2009, with the latest being the NORCAL transaction for $441 million, completed on May 5, 2021.
“We’re excited about bringing the talented best-in-class employees of NORCAL into the ProAssurance organization,” Rand said. “Together, we can make a huge impact on the healthcare professional liability market.”
For NORCAL, being a part of ProAssurance enables its customer base to benefit from the availability of “robust risk resources, claims and actuarial service and a broad product spectrum including turnkey captive insurance options,” Rand said. “The benefits for NORCAL are across the board.”
Meanwhile, Rand said ProAssurance stands to gain greatly from a much broader geographical scale afforded by San Francisco-based NORCAL.
“ProAssurance will benefit from the scale of the transaction and geographic diversification including access and deep physician market penetration in California and Pennsylvania,” he said. “The combined organization will be positioned as the number 3 writer in the medical professional liability space with a 50-state national platform.”
Rand said as larger multistate physician groups and healthcare entities are formed, having a broader geographical footprint is paramount.
“In today’s challenging claims environment, this enables us to underwrite more complex risks,” he said. “As our customers continue to grow larger, adding scale and ensuring efficiency and the capability to offer a true nationwide platform will continue to be critically important. We are committed to being the most efficient organization possible.”
This commitment to excellence is what led to the decision by NORCAL to join the ProAssurance family, said Sandra Beretta, M.D., immediate past chair of NORCAL’s board of directors.
“ProAssurance’s financial strength, diverse risk transfer capabilities, success in integrating acquisitions, and its focus on policyholder success were the key factors in the decision to join with them,” she said. “NORCAL has protected physicians and other healthcare professionals for more than four decades. As part of the ProAssurance family, NORCAL has increased its ability to serve its policyholders for many years to come.”
“For now,” Rand said, NORCAL policies will continue to be written as such, with the ProAssurance name also being included.
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