Message from the President and CEO

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT/CEO

At Public Entity Partners, we understand that it is tempting to review proposals from commercial insurance companies during soft market conditions. As we have said in the past, during these conditions, we may not always provide the lowest price in town, but we will always be there when the commercial insurance companies don’t want to deal with cities, towns and local service agencies.

As governing bodies seek to provide greater stability to their municipal budgets, it is our goal to also provide stability for your insurance market, as we have since 1979. At that time, the commercial market had largely pulled out of the local government insurance marketplace. PE Partners was created to provide long-term stability for these entities’ risk management and insurance coverages.

Recently, we have heard from a few members that they have been approached by commercial insurance carriers for quotes on certain pieces of their property/casualty programs. In addition, we have heard from several non-member local government entities who had portions of their liability policies canceled by the commercial market. These entities have been unable to obtain quotes from other commercial carriers.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have heard this. We also work with a member utility that had traditionally placed their coverage with the commercial market in the past. We stepped in to help when they were canceled by their carrier after catastrophic data modeling showed their account to be too risky for property coverage.

Please bear in mind that PE Partners underwrites our members’ lines of coverage as a comprehensive package. Allowing a commercial carrier to take one of the three lines could result in significant increases in premium or a lack of coverage availability. In other words, it weakens your overall property/casualty program, especially if you have experienced significant loss history and claims. Commercial markets are not always willing to accept the risks that are common with public entities, such as law enforcement, property, auto liability and physical damage.

PE Partners has consistently written all lines of these risks for our members for more than four decades. Just like our sister organizations, TML and MTAS, PE Partners exists only because Tennessee’s cities and towns exist. In October 1979, the cities of Athens and Hendersonville signed the interlocal agreement that created our organization, and we were one of the first statewide municipal liability pools established in the U.S. We immediately got to work putting a framework in place that emphasizes stable pricing, risk management and education — three core elements that we continue to focus on today.

We have always worked hard to make what we do a true partnership with our members and will continue to make that our top priority. In any insurance relationship, the best way to control your premiums is to control your losses. Our long-term experience enables us to present our members with outstanding resources for mitigating risk and reducing loss, in addition to what we believe is the fairest pricing available for your coverages.

We are always happy to work with you to provide the right coverages for your entity at the best possible cost. For 45 years, we’ve been here for you.