Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Ken R. Butler D&O Advisory - Why Companies and Advisory Board Members Should Purchase D&O/Employment Practices Insurance

Legacy Risk Solutions serves as the independent gatekeeper of their client's risk management and insurance program.

ADVISORY - Why Companies and Advisory Board Members Should Purchase Directors & Officers and Employment Practices Liability Insurance.

Ken R. Butler forwarded this advisory to all clients after observing the increasing trend of small start up companies to use advisory boards rather than a formal board of directors. A copy of the advisory is available by forwarding a request to kenblegacy@aol.com.

Reasons for concern include:

1. Advisory Board Members can be sued and are not automatically protected by corporate indemnification. Extension of corporate indemnification to advisory board members should be confirmed by corporate counsel.

2. Advisory Board Members are subject to litigation for employment practices including improper sexual advances, harassment, and discrimination in hiring practices that may have been the subject of review or supervision by the Advisory Board.

3. Advisory Boards are often treated like a Board of Directors by the President or CEO, reviewing personnell matters, financial performance, interviewing prospective management candidates, etc.

Legacy Risk Solutions Manages Insured Assets Exceeding $500,000,000

The addition of the latest client has pushed managed insured assets over $500,000,000 and annual premium managed over $6,000,000.

The client list includes five structured family offices, the family members, their businesses and not-for-profit interests and six multi- generational family businesses, their personal insurance and not-for-profit interests.

Services are provided by:

Ken R. Butler, President, CPCU and ARM

Joseph D. Zalar, Employee Benefits and Life Consultant, CLU and ChFC

Richard Aldinger, Consultant, CPCU

Edward S. Reighard III, CSA, Financial Planning Consultant

Gregory R. Bean, General Counsel

Mardi A. DePaul, Analyst and Special Projects Coordinator

Legacy Risk Solutions serves as the independent gatekeeper of their client's risk management and insurance program.

LRS Evaluates Group Excess Policy for Family Office

Legacy Risk Solutions, LRS, serves as the independent gatekeeper of their client's risk management and insurance program.

Generation 1 and Generation 2 were discovered to be purchasing variable umbrella/excess limits, from $5,000,000 to $50,000,000. A proposal for a Group Excess program was negotiated with the family's insurance agent. The result: significantly increased all G-2 limits for a lower cost than everyone was paying for their individual limits. The proposal evalution criteria included:

1. Each family to be provided their own dedicated $50,000,000 excess limit.

2. The offer had to be flexible, allowing individual family members to maintain their underlying primary homeowners with an insurer other than the insurer offering the Group Excess policy.

3. Each family member's existing umbrella or excess policy was to be compared to the group excess policy form.

LRS Conducts a Family Owned Health Insurance Captive Feasibility Study

Legacy Risk Solutions serves as the independent gatekeeper of their client's Risk Management and Insurance program.

Legacy Risk Solutions is conducting a feasibility study for a family owned health insurance captive.

Mission: To efficiently deliver quality health insurance benefits to all family members, the employees of the businesses owned by the family and the employees of the not for profit agencies supported by the family.

Vision: To be recognized as a revolutionary plan that reduces family office and not- for-profit health insurance costs, freeing precious dollars for the not-for-profit missions.

Legacy Risk Solutions Provides Objective Life Insurance Analysis

Legacy Risk Solutions serves as the independent gatekeeper of their client's Risk Management and insurance program.

Financial planners had overwhelmed a client, presenting complicated Life Insurance alternatives. Legacy Risk Solutions provided independent and objective analysis of the plans offered. The result was a tailored program to the client's objectives that was efficiently priced.

Common Recommendations include:

1. Consider investment options with lower expenses on variable life policies.

2. Evaluate the tax advantages of changing the beneficiary to a favorite charity and allowing the policy dividends and cash value to continue to pay the premiums without paying any additional premium.

3. Increase the coverage duration of Term Life by reducing the policy death benefit.

4. Level the death benefit. Change an increasing life benefit option to a level death benefit option, to extend the duration of Term life products.

5. Take advantage of the most recent extended mortality tables by submitting to a new life physical exam.

Legacy Risk Solutions Aggresively Negotiates Family Office Health Insurance Renewal

Legacy Risk Solutions LLC serves as the independent gatekeeper of their client's Risk Management and insurance program.

A Family Office health insurance program was facing a 20% increase in cost. Aggressive negotiation and the introduction of competition, through a managed competitive process, resulted in an overall decrease of 1%.

Ken R. Butler's Risk Consulting Motivation

Mr. Butler started his career as an independent insurance agent in 1977. In 1982 he joined a large insurance company. The denial of several claims for longtime cleints became a turning point for Mr. Butler. He realized there was an inherent conflict of interest in trying to be the advocate for the client and also receiving compensation from an insurance company. He became a student of the insurance industry, earning his Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter designation in 1987 and the Associate in Risk Management designation in 1989. Mr. Butler also terminated his employment with the insurance company and joined Crain Langner & Co. in 1987, one of the country's oldest risk management consulting firms. Crain Langner & Co. has exclusively served the interests of the insurance buyer since 1939.

In 2007 Mr. Butler formed Legacy Risk Solutions, LLC. LRS is dedicated to providing risk management consulting services to Family Offices and family business interests.

Mr. Butler has a passion for the fair treatment of the insurance consumer. He offered strong opinions about the unfairness of the post Katrina loss adjustments, arguing that the flooding should be covered by homeowners insurance, whether or not the buyer purchased flood insurance.

Mr. Butler has served as an expert witness in claim dispute actions against insurance companies. To date, the cases have either been settled in favor of the consumer or the award was made by the courts, favorable to the buyer of insurance.

Ken R. Butler's Educational Presentations

Ken R. Butler is an accomplished public speaker. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Akron, teaching Risk Management within the Finance Department at the College of Business Administration.

Recent presentations include:

Risk Management's Role In The Family Office, presented at the Family Office Forum, Chicago, Illinois

Risk Management is Wealth Preservation Management, presented to the Rotary Club International, Akron, Ohio

Next Scheduled Presentation:

Reduce Family Office Risks By: Risk Management - The Right Agent - The Right Insurance, to be presented at the Family Financial Forum, Chicago, Ill June 12, 2008 (Sponsored by Northern Trust's Wealth Management Group)