HELPING YOU MAKE SENSE OF RISK

Managing risk is our specialty. And risk-taking is something that all of our clients have in common. Your profitability and financial integrity are at risk because you work in a world of uncertainty, volatility, and incomplete information. Your livelihood, your reputation, and your ability to survive are on the line every day.

Some organizations think of “risk” as a four-letter word, as something to be avoided. Our goal is to help clients make sense of the risks they face, rather than simply avoiding them, so they can be better positioned to thrive and to take advantages of new opportunities that come their way.

Whether your goal is to enter a new market, to better assess the factors driving business performance, to fine-tune your rating strategy, to assess your balance sheet, to negotiate from a position of strength, to conduct a risk assessment, or to better understand implications of change, we would love the opportunity to look at your situation.

Examples of the types of risks that challenge our clients, and some of the ways we can help:

• Health insurance companies, managed care organizations, and reinsurers are at risk due to uncertainty about future claim costs. This uncertainty is driven by many factors — including the declining health status of the population, increasing health care costs, advances in medical technology, and increasing entitlement mentality — and is compounded by the effects of regulation, competition, reputation, and litigation. We can help these companies better measure the key factors driving bottom-line results, fine-tune their product offerings and rating structures, increase the predictive value of their projection models, assess the strength of their balance sheets, or test new underwriting tools.


• Hospitals, physicians, and other providers of health care are increasingly at risk of uncertain reimbursements due to capitation, risk-sharing programs, and risk adjuster systems. Expectations to comply with practice guidelines, together with the need to participate on a non-level playing field with insurers and HMOs, increase their risk. We can help by modeling alternate reimbursement strategies, reviewing reinsurance and risk-sharing programs, securing better data, and in general by leveling the playing field in all dealings with the insurance “middle man.”


• MGUs, TPAs, brokers, and others who make decisions on behalf of insurers risk their reputations, their relationships, and their ability to compete on a daily basis. Their success often depends on their ability to negotiate effectively and to respond appropriately to uncertainty. We can help by cementing relationships, reviewing rate manuals, assessing trends, designing renewal underwriting strategies, increasing the value of management reporting, designing risk management strategies, valuing books of business, and designing appropriate compensation programs.


• Businesses and institutions are at risk due to rapid changes in the cost of their employees’ health care programs. Those who self-insure take on many insurance company-like risks. Key decisions about health care benefits affect their employee recruitment and retention, and even business survival. We can help with benefit plan design, rate negotiations, and making appropriate decisions about their self-insurance programs.


• Lawyers, CPAs, and other professionals play key advisory roles for these risk-takers. Their own reputations and livelihoods are at risk, because they are only as good as the services they offer. We can help these professionals work from a position of strength, whether involved in negotiation, or investigation, or litigation.

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© 2003 Mark Haarer Consulting LLC. All rights reserved.
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Mark Haarer, FSA, MAAA
Phone: 260.627.8130
FAX: 260.627.8131
Mark@mhcllc.com
P.O. Box 431
Leo, IN 46765

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

—Yogi Berra