TDCSU President Paul Romano Provides a Mid-Year Business Update

We hope that this mid-year update finds you well and you are having a great 2021.

At TDC Specialty Underwriters (TDCSU), we continue to make progress in building out our broker relationships, in growing our new business, retaining our renewals and in further developing our operating and service platform.

We are certainly seeing signs of headwinds, particularly from a pricing standpoint, but are also keenly aware of further unfavorable prior year development among some of the longer-term players in the E&S healthcare liability market. While new capacity and rate increase fatigue are factors of concern, there seems to be a general resolve to get the business on firm financial footing while the opportunity exists. We feel good about where we are at this stage of TDCSU’s evolution and our specialty E&S offerings.

When The Doctors Company first commissioned the creation of TDCSU in early 2016, its primary purpose was to broaden The Doctors Company’s ability to support an evolving healthcare industry with specialized and responsible insurance programs. After all, there are few if any healthcare liability insurance companies that have a longer and richer history of protection, advocacy, education and risk mitigation for healthcare providers and organizations than The Doctors Company. Its core members have demonstrated significant loyalty and satisfaction through the extraordinary policy retention and feedback mechanisms in place for many years.

The scope of TDCSU’s operations speak to this broader support of the healthcare industry as we have been charged with the privilege and responsibility, under the TDC Group banner, of insuring hospitals, non-hospital medical facilities, long term care facilities and physicians and groups utilizing E&S paper, as well as managed care organizations and life science companies.

Our inception in 2016 occurred in the very late stages of a declining market where insurer financial results were deteriorating to a no longer acceptable level. And, accordingly, at the very beginning stages of a movement across the industry to improve results through pricing, coverage and terms and conditions changes intended to reverse this course and return a logical balance to the cost and funding of risk. The timing of our entry was certainly fortunate and has provided us the chance to establish a stable and better funded portfolio of specialty insurance programs. But, in no way has this adventure been an opportunistic participation in a ‘hardening’ market. No more than knowing our entry timing is needed to validate this perspective.

From the very start, our focus has been on assembling an expert team, providing them the products, tools, resources and support they need while working with selected distribution partners to do thoughtful and responsive work that those partners and our insureds can rely upon. We have a long view, and our current and future strategies reflect this.

Providing stable and sustainable capacity is at the core of our commitment to the facilities and organizations we insure. This may not always translate into the broadest product at the lowest price on each and every quote we issue but it does speak to the reasonableness of our approach, technical competence of our day-to-day work and our true dedication to fulfilling our commitments.

We hope our resolve to do things right is evident and that you will continue to look to us as your market of choice for the healthcare facilities and organizations you represent—and, as a future partner for new ideas and concepts as they emerge.

We would be happy to arrange a call or a visit to further discuss opportunities and to bring back the great energy of face-to-face encounters. Please contact George Bennett at george.bennett@tdcspecialty.com or at (205) 249-7837 if you would like to schedule some time to talk.