EmPRO Insurance Company (“EmPRO”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Physicians’ Reciprocal Insurers (“PRI”), a New York reciprocal insurance exchange formed in 1981 (collectively, the “Company”). PRI began writing medical professional liability insurance (and ancillary general liability insurance) in New York State in 1982 until its acquisition of EmPRO (formerly, Empire Insurance Company) from Sirius America Insurance Company in July 2020. Although a single state monoline insurer writing exclusively medical professional liability insurance in New York State, for decades PRI remained one of the top 15 medical malpractice insurers in the United States.
However, PRI struggled through a number of tumultuous years and at year-end 2016, PRI’s filed financial statements indicated a negative surplus in excess of $354 million. In July 2017, in an effort to cure PRI’s insolvency and engineer a turnaround, the New York State Department of Financial Services, PRI’s domiciliary regulator, authorized PRI’s newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary, PRIMMA LLC, as its new Attorney-in-Fact under new management led by Bruce C. Shulan and his team at The Princeton Partnership, LLC (“TPP”). Beginning in July 2017, management sought to restructure and reorganize the entire organization, including fundamentally changing the way the Company does business through greater financial discipline and a re-underwriting of PRI’s entire book of business. The primary underwriting focus was the profitability and quality of the business. Not simply driven by volume and quantity, management has made significant changes to improve the overall operations of the Company. Consistent with these changes, PRI has seen significant improvements in underwriting, claims and general operations, all of which have contributed to a surplus improvement since the reorganization began in July 2017 of 96% or $326 million as of year-end 2022. These improvements have lead to lower cost and greater efficiency, while making PRI significantly more responsive to its policyholders and claimants alike.
As a wholly owned subsidiary of PRI, EmPRO continues and expands upon PRI’s legacy mantra. While EmPRO is a separate insurance company, capitalized with $100 million, it does business under the PRI umbrella and maintains the same exceptional standards, customer service, risk management, claims handling and aggressive defense PRI policyholders have come to expect over the years. Upon EmPRO’s acquisition and commencement of operations in September 2020, PRI’s decades long business was rolled into EmPRO. As of October 1, 2020, PRI ceased writing all new and qualified renewal business and EmPRO became the authorized insurance company within the PRI family through which all insurance business is written and all in force policies currently reside. All EmPRO policyholders are Subscribers of the PRI reciprocal exchange.
PRIMMA LLC, PRI’s wholly owned subsidiary, acts as both the Attorney-in-Fact for PRI and the Manager for EmPRO, which means that the team which reengineered the turnaround of PRI beginning in July 2017 is the same team of senior management and employees responsible for the business operations of EmPRO and its expansion. As of June 15, 2023, EmPRO is authorized to write medical professional liability insurance for physicians, other healthcare professionals, hospitals and healthcare facilities in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Additionally, effective September 1, 2020, EmPRO was granted an Article 63 license to write qualified business in the New York Free Trade Zone.
EmPRO is the 3rd largest writer of medical professional liability in New York State and the 13th largest MPL insurer in the United States, with annual written premiums in excess of $170 million.