Writing coverage for behavioral health agencies has become much easier over the past few years as more mainstream companies have entered the market, said 24-year account executive William “Bill” Zester, who has focused on the sector for more than half of his career.
Zester has worked for 5 agencies, and is now with a large independent agency in Ewing, New Jersey. That century-old firm donates more than $100,000 a year to local nonprofits and sponsors events such as bringing in a fundraising expert to lead seminars for local organizations.
Zester said he was introduced to nonprofit social service accounts by a former boss who did a lot of work in the sector. “He was big into writing behavioral healthcare nonprofits, a lot of drug treatment clinics, methadone clinics, addiction treatment programs, and he introduced me to those products. We really campaigned to try and write as many of these types of accounts as possible and they were a little hairier in those days, a little more difficult. They weren’t being pursued as aggressively by your standard general agents, so they were a little more bulletproof, which was appealing. When I got an understanding and a feel for what they needed and what they wanted and the types of programs I could put in place for them, it became my niche specialty,” he said.
Since that time, he said, he has seen companies come and go. Even with some companies going out of business, he said today the nonprofit sector is better served than ever. “Lately, more companies have been coming in to write these kinds of accounts. Some of the standard carriers have come in, and become pretty aggressive writing them. These are companies that weren’t even thinking about writing this kind of account in the past, so it became a little bit more mainstream.”
Today, he said there are 5 or 6 mainstream companies willing to write any given account. “We have the pick of the litter now. Also the coverages have changed. In the past if we had an account that needed primary medical malpractice, we had to bring a med-mal specialist in to write that. Now a lot of carriers will write that primary med mal in with the standard coverage.
“Sexual abuse molestation has become much easier to place within the program rather than having to pull hairs. Umbrellas now cover over the top of the professional liability and sexual abuse molestation, which they never used to, so the market has changed significantly and it is much less scary than it used to be and much more open. Some of the standard companies have found that this is a profitable niche,” he said.
