Public Risk Managers Called Upon To Wear More Hats, PRIMA Pres. Says

"It's a changing world," said Ms. Perry, who is risk manager for the City of Columbia in Missouri. "When I first started working in this area, I needed to know how to buy insurance and handle claims."

By contrast, as an example of what's expected of public risk managers today, she said she had "just got an e-mail asking me to comment on impending legislation. They wanted my input on how the city stands on it."

As well as expanding demands on public risk managers, economic pressures also are having a big impact on her working life. One of the city's concerns, she said, is added pressure on the employee benefits and pension fund.

Although she strives to look out for city employees, "the economy is making it more difficult, because the city is looking at possibly asking employees for more money to pay for benefits."

With less building going on, a shrinking tax base is also an issue for municipalities that rely on property tax revenues. One result has been drastic reductions in professional development and travel for employees in many municipalities, she said.

Because of the constriction of taxes, there also is added pressure to beef up loss prevention programs, which have taken on "increased urgency," she said. Cutting or eliminating losses "is what we as entities have more control over. We don't have much control over premiums."

Additional efforts have been put toward working with third-party administrators to identify the most economical medical treatments for injured employees, for example.

A concern, Ms. Perry noted, is that economic difficulties could potentially increase the number of claims and losses filed, "because people are looking for any kind of funding or other money they can get."

Ms. Perry said her job consists primarily of "coordinating the protection of the city's assets through insurance handling of claims and prevention programs." The city is self-insured, meaning that claims are handled by a third-party administrator.

Other hats she wears include emergency preparedness and disaster planning. She also is the go-to person and coordinator of any legal actions from claims, "so I deal a lot with attorneys. Fifteen years ago this wasn't part of a [public] risk manager's job."

Ms. Perry also is responsible for purchasing excess insurance and specialty insurance coverages for the city's health department, airport, railroad and public utilities–including electric and water.

She takes care of workers' compensation, general liability, auto liability and coordinates loss control programs for employees through a full-time safety professional.

This year's insurance renewals, on Oct. 1, "were very level," she said, although with property renewals, because the premium didn't increase but the exposure did, "it works out like an increase."

Property coverage includes a power plant, waste-water treatment processing facility, water treatment plant, and a large public works operations building where the majority of the city's public works vehicles are stored.

The vehicles are used for "everything from street to solid waste, sewer utility, the transit division–and we have our own mechanics that work on the vehicles," she said. Also included in the coverage is a large activity center and recreation facility.

The city has 1,200 full-time employees and about 700 temporary employees, mostly hired during the summer in the parks and recreation department.

Since insurance negotiating and purchasing is done annually, what takes up most of her time, she noted, is dealing with members of the public who have potential claims.

"I'm often the one who discusses with them and gets info to send to our claims administrator," she said. "It might be someone who feels they have an injury, property damage or a vehicle accident that involved a city vehicle."

Ms. Perry, who has been with the city for more than 11 years, has a background in safety and loss control. She once worked for an insurance broker, served as risk manger for a hospital in Iowa, and was risk manager for a workers' comp trust–a pool program for long-term care facilities.

Looking ahead, Ms. Perry advised public risk managers to find ways to stay abreast of industry trends.

"For me, one of the biggest benefits is the information and knowledge I gain not only from PRIMA but from my peers," she said. "I find that what I'm experiencing, someone else is either in the middle of, or has already gone through."

She is involved with the Missouri chapter of PRIMA, which together with the Kansas chapter has an annual conference each April, attracting about 120 attendees.

Although it's "much lower-key" than the national meeting, the two-day conference helps public risk managers with local issues. "Some of the best information comes from people just down the interstate," she said.

More and more, she noted, public entities are asking PRIMA for information on enterprise risk management. Although ERM has taken off in the private sector, more public risk managers are looking at ERM to broaden their loss prevention efforts. She noted that this year PRIMA has devoted an entire track to ERM at its annual conference.

"We're still at the beginning stages," she said. "Public risk managers need to understand the concept of working with and aligning risk management within the goals, the strategies, the bigger picture, within their entity."

The obstacles to ERM are similar to those identified in the private sector, she said. While public risk managers need to know more about ERM and become involved, "it depends on where the buy-in is within their administration, and this differs from entity to entity," she noted. "Some still don't think the risk manager has a part in [ERM], but I think that changes as [leaders] start hearing about it through their own associations and conferences."