Nonprofits Insurance Alliance (NIA) is a group of cooperative 501(c)(3) nonprofit insurance organizations that provide liability and property insurance exclusively to other
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
nonprofits.
History
Pamela Davis, NIA's Founder, President and CEO, was a graduate student at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
during the
liability insurance crisis of the 1980s, when insurance companies raised their premiums drastically, reduced their coverages, and left some segments of the market, including many nonprofits, completely uncovered.
Davis' master's thesis, documented how the insurance crisis was harming nonprofit organizations and in some cases even putting them out of business. In 1987, she testified before the California General Assembly that:
Based on her research, Davis was convinced that conventional insurers did not fully understand insurance risk in the nonprofit sector, so she set out to create a nonprofit
risk pool A “Risk pool” is a form of risk management that is mostly practiced by insurance companies, which come together to form a pool to provide protection to insurance companies against catastrophic risks such as floods or earthquakes. The term is als ...
that could better meet the needs of nonprofits in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. In 1989, Davis secured $1.3 million in loans from nonprofit partners and foundations to create the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC), the first and largest company in NIA.
Over the next decade, NIAC grew to serve thousands of nonprofits, but its operations were limited to the state of California. In order to replicate the NIAC model nationwide, Davis secured $5 million from the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was l ...
and $5 million from the
David & Lucile Packard Foundation to found the Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, Risk Retention Group (ANI).
Companies in the group
Nonprofits Insurance Alliance is an insurance cooperative composed of four distinct 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations:
*Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC): Provides liability and property insurance to nonprofits in California.
*Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, Risk Retention Group (ANI): Provides liability insurance to nonprofits with operations outside of California.
*National Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance (NANI): Provides property reinsurance.
*Alliance Member Services (AMS): Provides support to the other companies in the group and their partner programs.
Further reading
Official website of Nonprofits Insurance AllianceNonprofit and Liability Insurance: Problems, Options, and Prospects- Pamela Davis' Master's Thesis on the nonprofit insurance crisis, published by the Conrad Hilton Foundation and the California Community Foundation.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nonprofits Insurance Alliance
Insurance companies of the United States
Companies based in Santa Cruz, California
Financial services companies established in 1989
1989 establishments in California
Non-profit organizations based in California
Companies established in 1989
Financial services companies of the United States
1989 establishments in the United States