New healthcare insurance conference to attract 160 attendees and showcase Bermuda risk-coverage market

HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 20, 2017 -- Bermuda is set to host a new insurance market conference this spring, catering to sophisticated buyers for major hospital systems, long-term care facilities, physicians groups and health benefits and services providers from North American healthcare markets.

Jereme Ramsay, Business Development Manager at the BDA, with Bermuda Healthcare Forum co-chairs Lindsay Roos (left), of Bowring Marsh, and Aon’s Amy Wolfinger

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d7401f19-6887-414e-8110-a1a2dc647d29.

Sponsored by the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA), the Bermuda Healthcare Forum, scheduled for March 15–16, has already sold out capacity after registering 160 delegates, including more than 100 from overseas along with a dozen accompanying guests, and nearly 60 Bermuda-based attendees. Delegates and guests from abroad are booked into both Rosewood Tucker’s Point and Grotto Bay Resort.

“The BDA is thrilled to be lead sponsor of the first Bermuda Healthcare Forum,” said BDA Business Development Manager Jereme Ramsay. “Members of Bermuda’s healthcare risk-management sector met at BDA last year to discuss industry trends and exchange ideas. Through this collaboration, the idea to host a healthcare forum on-island was put forward—and industry representatives here have worked very hard to make the idea a reality.

“The forum will present a great opportunity to bring brokers, insurance buyers and other risk professionals to the island,” noted Ramsay, “and through collective engagement, competing industry partners here have been able to achieve shared success for both their respective companies and the jurisdiction as a whole.”

Bermuda-based industry leaders in the sector created an eight-person team to drive the event’s creation and marketing, and when registration opened in October, it took fewer than three months for delegate capacity to be reached. Local resources and vendors working with the team include Terry Madeiros, of marketing-design firm TM Design, Bermudian freelance web developer Amy Peniston and Selange Gitschner, of event production company Dasfete.

“As an inaugural event for Bermuda, we feel our forum is quite revolutionary, both in its audience and interactive design,” said conference co-chair Amy Wolfinger, Vice President, Casualty, Healthcare, at Aon Risk Solutions. “We have invited the Bermuda healthcare market client base—made up of the largest, most dynamic healthcare systems and managed-care companies in the US. Our goal for this first forum was to be intimate and interactive, so we limited the size to a maximum of 160 people—and we’ve now reached that number.”

Healthcare industry clients have been experiencing large and complex changes as the sector continues to undergo significant transformation in recent years, said event co-chair Lindsay Roos, Senior Vice President, Bermuda Placement Specialist at Bowring Marsh. “Healthcare is moving to patient-centric care and the changes in reimbursement and integration of providers delivering care are revolutionising the industry,” she explained. “Healthcare providers are now responsible for the entire continuum of care and are delivering that through acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures—and the web of these complex relationships drives the need to manage risk more than ever before.”

The agenda for the Bermuda Healthcare Forum has been structured around eight thematic sessions that address the changing risk landscape in healthcare and feature a variety of industry participants detailing how different companies are handling changes.

“From integrated insurance structures, to the traditional siloed approach, every client has a slightly different view on how to handle risk and we want to share the differences and lessons learned, and discover best practices for determining what works for your programme,” said Roos.

BDA CEO Ross Webber will moderate the forum’s CEO panel, looking at why companies have chosen to domicile in Bermuda and the benefits for healthcare clients of doing business here. The agenda will also have an interactive client panel in which healthcare systems will discuss enterprise risk and what they feel is lacking in their current risk-transfer programmes.

“We want to hear what risks are not being addressed in the insurance marketplace and how the Bermuda carriers and brokers can pioneer new products and provide solutions,” said Wolfinger.

Bermuda is the market of choice for healthcare liability insurance buyers due to the amount of capacity available, the high standard of contract certainty, and the ability to create new products in response to market needs. Sectors typically insured include hospitals, senior and long-term care facilities, blood and organ banks, assisted-living facilities, diagnostic centres, physicians groups, and rehabilitation and clinical research organisations.

Global insurers based on the island are able to provide up in excess of $350-million capacity for any single risk and have the ability to write lead and excess layers on an insurance programme. The market has a solid track record of paying claims, has been consistent through all market cycles, and provides substantive limits.

For more information on the Bermuda Healthcare Forum, go to: http://www.bermudahealthcareforum.com/.

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