John Glander and Robert Meadows of Professional Risk Associates Inc. understand the nuances of medical malpractice insurance. Their company has specialized in medical malpractice insurance for physicians and physician groups since Glander founded the firm in 1989. He started the company with one employee, Don Riley. The company employs 25 people, all of whom are now shareholders.

The Washington Post recently ran a lengthy story comparing the efforts of the Clinton and Obama administrations to pass health care reforms. Many liberals are anxious that Obama’s push will end the same way Clinton’s did: as dead and stinky as a beached mackerel. The Post writer, Ezra Klein, makes clear that he understands one of the causes of escalating health care costs—but misunderstands the systemic flaws that make rising prices unavoidable. He notes that “the Justice Department judges an industry ‘highly concentrated’ if a single company controls more than 42 percent of the market. By that definition, 94 percent of statewide insurance markets are highly concentrated.“

Because seizing control of the energy, automotive, and financial sectors of the economy evidently just whets the appetite, Washington is now hell-bent on further nationalizing the country’s health care apparatus as well. House Democrats have introduced a bill of gargantuan proportions and hypodermic invasiveness, which they and the White House insist must be passed by late afternoon tomorrow, if not yesterday.

JOHN L. McELROY III Metro Business asked John “Mac” L. McElroy III - senior vice president and managing director of RCM&D Virginia, an insurance, risk-management and employee-benefits consulting firm - about how businesses need to prudently examine their insurance coverage to find some savings: “With declining payrolls, make sure that your worker’s compensation premiums are also dropping.

Virginia Farm Bureau Insurance Co. will be named to the 2009 Ward’s 50 this afternoon, the first time the Goochland County-based company has made the list of top-performing insurance companies. “This is something we are very excited about,“ said Richard Rivers, Farm Bureau’s executive vice president and general manager. The official announcement and the other names on the 2009 list will be announced later this afternoon.

s   Headquarters: West Creek office park, Goochland County
  Employees: 787
  Headquarter employees: 315
  Agencies: 22
  2008 sales: $235 million
  Members: 148,000

Henrico County-based Genworth Financial Inc. hit a key financial target today by repaying the last of its long term debt coming due this year.

The top executive with Willis Group Holdings Ltd., which acquired Henrico County-based Hilb Rogal & Hobbs last year, said yesterday that he sees potential for significant growth in the firm’s local operations in the next few years. The insurance brokerage’s business “is doing well,“ Joe Plumeri, Willis Group’s chairman and CEO, said in an interview yesterday.

Willis North America is cutting 60 jobs at its Henrico County office, formerly a part of insurance broker Hilb Rogal & Hobbs. The job cuts will be effective by June 30, according to a notice the company filed with the state this week and made public yesterday. Hilb Rogal & Hobbs, founded in Richmond in 1982, was acquired in October by Willis Group Holdings Ltd., a London-based insurance broker, in a $1.67 billion deal. After the acquisition, Willis merged Hilb Rogal & Hobbs with its North American operations into a combined subsidiary named Willis HRH.

Dr. Michael Murchie feels as if he has averted a medical crisis at least a few times recently. Murchie is a doctor at CrossOver Ministry’s free clinic in western Henrico County. As the economic downturn continues and more people lose jobs and their employer-sponsored health insurance, more are turning to free clinics. Some of the newly uninsured formerly benefited from high-tech medical innovations such as stents—wire mesh tubes inserted into heart arteries to keep them open and blood flowing.

The State Corporation Commission has been named receiver for Shenandoah Life Insurance Co. by the Richmond Circuit Court. Shenandoah Life and the commission determined that the receivership was necessary to protect the interests of policyholders and creditors. Shenandoah Life is a Virginia-based life and health insurer writing primarily life, annuities and dental insurance. The company is based in Roanoke and is licensed to do business in 31 states plus the District of Columbia.

The state Senate has rejected for the year efforts to force insurance companies to pay for treatment for children with autism.

Genworth Financial Inc. is bracing for a dire economy—10 percent unemployment, an additional 13 percent drop in home prices and declines of 15 percent or more in the stock market—but doesn’t think it will need to lay off more employees, Chief Executive Officer Michael D. Fraizer said yesterday. A series of dramatic late-fall and winter moves, including laying off 1,000 employees, has the Henrico County-based insurance and investment giant hunkered down for the worst. “This is a company that has done what it had to do to move forward,“ Fraizer said a day after the company reported losing $572 million during 2008.

Workers across the country are feeling the pinch of higher health care costs. A recent corporate survey found one-fourth of companies raised deductibles by 9 percent last year, and a third said they expected to raise them as much as 14 percent this year. Companies also are increasing the share of premiums paid by employees. News articles relate sad stories of individuals forced to forgo treatment because of rising deductibles. The Washington Post reports, “Workers’ health costs are rising much faster than wages.“

The Richmond region’s insurance landscape has fractured in the nation’s financial earthquake, but many significant players remain sound. On the minus side: