If pure performance is the primary criteria by which a business executive’s stature should be judged, then Dick Bouhan is truly a legend.

As a top official at the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (NAPSLO) since 1981, Bouhan spearheaded a remarkable transformation of the Excess & Surplus (or specialty) market.

Thirty years ago, E&S was poorly understood; most of the players were small, family-owned operations; and it comprised a miniscule portion—about 5 percent—of the commercial P&C universe.

Today, E&S’ share of the market is in the midteens, with premium volume increasing from $2.34 billion dollars in 1981 to well over $30 billion today. And the market is now dominated by large, national wholesalers.

Regarding the sharp growth, Bouhan jokes, “I like to take credit for all of that.”

What’s more, thanks in large part to ceaseless educational efforts by NAPSLO and expert counseling of federal and state officials by Bouhan himself, “regulators see the role of the marketplace much more clearly today,” he tells NU.

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Bouhan joined NAPSLO as government relations director. At that time, the organization had 566 member firms that registered an additional 222 branch offices for a total of 788 member locations. Today, NAPSLO has 722 member firms with 792 branch offices for a total of 1,514 member offices.

In 1987 Bouhan was named executive director. He retired last September—which was appropriate, given that the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act (legislation he helped craft over eight years) went into effect in July, marking the end of a journey he began in 2003.

“The fact that the surplus-lines [industry] has been recognized in federal law, with some general basic rules as to how it should be regulated and taxed, is a positive [development] for the industry,” Bouhan says.

“The British refer to someone who can be entrusted, someone who stays the course and doesn't get rattled, as a ‘steady hand.’ Dick Bouhan has been a steady hand for the specialty-insurance industry and that will be one of the attributes of his legacy,” says Marshall Kath, NAPSLO’s 2011 president and CEO of Colemont Insurance Brokers until last year.

Looking back on his career, Bouhan is pleased to note the surplus-lines industry has changed dramatically. In addition to the dramatic premium growth, he takes pride in the shift in perception he helped engineer.

“Thirty years ago, the surplus market was inaccurately seen as consisting of mostly foreign or non-U.S.-based companies coming from ‘exotic’ island locations and as a market whose solvency was generally problematic,” he says.

“The fact is that back then, as is true today, the vast majority of surplus-lines business was written by U.S.-based companies and the dominant foreign insurer in the surplus-lines market was Lloyd’s of London,” he continues. “And that fact is now generally understood.”

In addition, “the misperception that the solvency track record of the surplus-lines market is poor has been replaced by the recognition that the surplus-lines market is as solvent and financially solid, if not more so, than the admitted market,” he adds.

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#10 Dick Bouhan: Today&rsquo;s Specialty

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#10 Dick Bouhan: Today’s Specialty