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CREATING A RISK RETENTION GROUP WAS JUST PART OF WHAT ENVISION HEALTHCARE’S ERIC
GARDZINA DID IN BECOMING A RISK ALL STAR

Not only did Eric Gardzina and his team valiantly respond to the challenges of
the pandemic, but they also spent the last year creating their own risk
retention group.
By: Emma Brenner | September 2, 2021
Topics: Health Care | Profiles | Risk All Stars | Risk Management | September
2021 Issue

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 will always be remembered
as a time of great uncertainty and tension.

And while the uncertainty left no industry unscathed, Envision Healthcare knew
it was imperative to step into the front lines.

Two issues were made blatantly clear: maintaining hospital worker safety and
assisting parts of the country hit hardest by COVID-19.

Eric Gardzina, vice president of insurance & risk management for Envision
Healthcare, led the charge in tackling these two initiatives.

“Envision made the decision that we wanted to help, how and where we could,”
Gardzina said. “We sent clinicians where they were needed, and we worked with
hospitals to make sure that they had the doctors there to help take care of
patients.”

The pandemic forced many doctors to reacclimate themselves to work they had not
done since the beginning of their careers.

Gardzina said ensuring these physicians were comfortable with the work they were
doing was critical. Additionally, physician safety was a top priority,
especially in the beginning of the pandemic when information on the virus and
its transmission was limited.

Constantly touching base with physicians and making sure they were taking time
off to avoid burnout was another strong component of Envision’s pandemic
response.

As COVID-19 significantly impacted various parts of the country, like New York
City, Envision and Gardzina worked to send its physicians to those places that
needed them most. That required constant collaboration with hospitals and
providers in reassuring that physician credentials would be accepted in various
states.

“From an insurance perspective, we had to understand different emergency
protocols as well as making sure we could insure and track these clinicians in
different states and issue certificates of insurance to those that needed them,”
Gardzina said.

In the end, Envision successfully executed its plan, one that Gardzina calls a
“team effort.”

Aside from his effective response to the pandemic, Gardzina also played an
instrumental role in the creation of Envision’s own risk retention group.

This was due to the changing, hardening market that the industry has faced in
recent years. Factors that pushed Envision to this decision also included
carriers’ distaste for covering certain exposures as well as the size of
Envision itself.

But the formation of a risk retention group is no easy task. Gardzina worked
diligently to ensure certification for the RRG from the State of Vermont as well
as transparently communicating with hospitals and providers.

He knew a newly created RRG would not have the ratings of some others, but he
believed this open dialogue would ease any uncertainty.

“From a marketing and partnership standpoint, we wanted to make sure the
hospitals we contracted with understood our plans with the RRG so they continued
to feel comfortable partnering with us and knew it would be a beneficial program
moving forward,” he said. &

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every year, Risk & Insurance selects deserving candidates to become Risk All
Stars. These are risk managers who, through their perseverance, passion and
creativity, make a big difference to the stability of their organizations.

See all the 2021 Risk All Star Winners here.

Emma Brenner is a staff writer with Risk & Insurance. She can be reached at
brenner@theinstitutes.org.

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SPONSORED: AXA XL

WHY WORKING WITH A RISK CONSULTANT ON YOUR BIGGEST PROPERTY EXPOSURES IS A NO
BRAINER

When it comes to managing property’s biggest risks like natural catastrophes,
having a risk consultant team in your back pocket will go a long way.
By: AXA XL | April 1, 2022

When it comes to managing property risk, the conversation doesn’t get too far
before natural catastrophes come into play.

Hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms — the continental U.S. has had its fair share
of Nat CATS, and these incidents are growing in both size and scale. In the last
two years, there were a total of 51 named hurricanes. Losses for 2021 are
estimated to cost over $67 billion, making it among the most expensive hurricane
seasons yet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The perils have always been there. Hurricanes have always been there. Floods
have always been there,” said Scott Ewing, regional manager of Risk Consulting
for the Americas at AXA XL. “But the intensity, the loss amounts, the number of
events — they’ve all been on a much larger scale.”

It’s changed the risk landscape for clients, he added, in that, as a risk
consultant, he’s seen more portfolio impact versus individual risks.

“It’s proven a significant influence in how we provide our services and in how
we develop our risk consulting tools.”

Risk consulting for property risk has become a necessary tool in the risk
manager’s arsenal. But what exactly will they gain? Here’s a deeper look at what
risk consulting can do to protect against today’s biggest property threats, as
well as what to look for in a risk consulting partner.

WHAT A RISK CONSULTANT CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Scott Ewing, Regional Manager of Risk Consulting for the Americas, AXA XL

A risk consultant can wear many hats, from creating a custom risk management
plan for their partners to seeing that plan come into fruition to executing new
risk mitigation solutions.

“Our high-level focus is trying to bring innovative solutions to clients and
trying to make a difference for them,” Ewing explained. “A risk consultant is
there to first help clients understand and then address their exposures.”

The risk consultant sits at the crossroads of client and data — a great role,
indeed, where they can collect various data points from different partners and
use what they learn to drive solutions. Collected data gives the risk
consultants an overview of potential risk areas, how certain exposures impact a
business, what mitigation tools have worked in the past and more.

From that overview, the risk consultant is poised to make recommendations and to
create new solutions for their clients.

“It’s all about how we gather the data, how we synthesize that into a usable
format, and then how we present it to our clients so that they can make good
business decisions,” Ewing said.

“No matter what line of business it is — property, marine or whatever it may be
— we, as the consultant, can take that information and make it usable.”

SEVERE WEATHER AND THE RISK CONSULTANT’S INGENUITY

When it comes to looking at severe weather risk, a risk consultant team can be a
great asset to have. They are the ones who are looking at the data every day,
running through scenarios and reviewing best practices.

From that rigorous review, the risk consultants not only have an idea of
possible loss areas, but they also have the information needed to start putting
new innovations into play.

“We’re always looking to build tools and the capabilities around understanding
property risks, like natural catastrophes,” said Ewing.

One such innovation is an internal tool, currently in development, designed to
assess potential damage caused by Nat CAT events. For example, looking just at
flood risk, the tool can give the risk consultants an estimated depth of
flooding. They will take that information, along with data collected on
occupancy and a building’s construction, in an effort to categorize the
partner’s risk exposure.

“We’ll look for items like if water will recede or if it will rage through,
because the level of damage can be significantly different based on the velocity
of the water. Then we’ll look at in the occupancy of the building, take notes as
to whether or not the building, machinery and stock would withstand water damage
— like steel — or if it’s a perishable — like food,” Ewing noted of the process.

“We help clients understand the scope and scale of their exposure, then they can
start making business decisions on how they address that exposure.”

Another innovation the AXA XL team has been working on is its Remote Risk
Dialogue, or RRD. Because the pandemic required businesses to operate remotely,
RRD was brought to the fore.

“It replaces physical site visits but still allows us to keep loss prevention
top of mind,” said Ewing. “It’s a very formalized, structured conversation
conducted over a virtual meeting, in which we walk through with the client any
changes, any hazards that may have been introduced.”

Risk Scanning is another tool Ewing and his team utilize to help clients. A
questionnaire at its core, Risk Scanning was developed by the AXA XL team to
glean important information about a client’s portfolio of properties in a quick,
easy and cost-effective format.

“A typical property risk assessment of a client’s properties might have only
included the business’ larger sites. Now, we can gather any number of different
focus sets of data from across the client’s entire property portfolio. And then
we pull them back into the system and we use the system to categorize and
analyze and do some data analytics to show us trends,” said Ewing. “It gives us
all a clearer picture of potential exposures across the property portfolio.”
Risk Scanning has also proven to be a very effective way to assess supply chain
exposures.

Risk consultants use the analytical piece on the backend to provide clients with
recommendations and insight into best practices to protect against any number of
exposures, including Nat CAT.

FINDING A RISK CONSULTANT PARTNER WITH THE RIGHT APPROACH

When starting with a consulting group, it’s important to know what the risk
approach will look like. How does the consultant and their work integrate within
the business?

“It starts from selecting what we’re going to do or talking with our clients
about what they’re going to engage us to do, what sites they would like us to go
survey,” said Ewing. “We may have some input to that, whether that be driven by
a specific underwriting need or just our understanding of the risks.”

Simple enough. But what makes a risk consultant stand out most is in how they
approach the consulting. The team at AXA XL prides itself on being collaborative
and transparent with clients — two qualities that go the extra mile when working
with a partner.

“We’re very flexible in how we scope out the work we are going to do to make
sure we meet the client’s needs,” said Ewing. They do this by utilizing
tried-and-true strategies, including using a risk quality index for on-site
surveys or engaging in Remote Risk Dialogue to understand what’s being asked.

Either way, the goal is always to find a workable solution for the partner that
both mitigates its big risks and fits the client’s budget and timeline.

What’s key to the AXA XL strategy is that “we don’t hold anything back. There
are no secret squirrel reports or internal reports that we generate. Everything
we do and everything we collect, we provide to our clients,” Ewing added. “It’s
about impacting their business, making sure they clearly understand their risks
and their exposures. And then they have an opportunity to work with us, to find
a viable solution to reduce their exposures.”

To learn more, visit: https://axaxl.com/insurance/risk-consulting.

This article was produced by the R&I Brand Studio, a unit of the advertising
department of Risk & Insurance, in collaboration with AXA XL. The editorial
staff of Risk & Insurance had no role in its preparation.

AXA XL, the property & casualty and specialty risk division of AXA, provides
insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies
through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance
companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn
more, visit www.axaxl.com.