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A risk retention group (RRG) is an alternative risk transfer entity created by the federal Liability Risk Retention Act (LRRA). RRGs must form as liability insurance companies under the laws of at least one state—its charter state or domicile. The policyholders of the RRG are also its owners and membership must be limited to organizations or persons engaged in similar businesses or activities, thus being exposed to the same types of liability. Most RRGs are regulated as captive insurance companies. However, RRGs domiciled in states without captive law are regulated as traditional insurance companies. RRGs provide their members with the following benefits: * Program control * Long-term rate stability * Customized Loss control and risk management practices * Dividends for good loss experience * Access to reinsurance markets * Stable source of liability coverage at affordable rates * Multi-state operations ==History== Under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, most insurance matters are regulated at the state, rather than federal, level. However, in the late 1970s, Congress faced an unprecedented crisis in insurance markets, during which many businesses were unable to obtain product liability coverage at any cost. Congress was forced to take action, and, after several years of study, enacted the Product Liability Risk Retention Act of 1981, which permitted individuals or businesses with similar or related liability exposure to form "risk retention groups" for the purpose of self-insuring. The Act only applied to product liability and completed operations insurance. When companies faced similar issues obtaining other types of liability insurance in the 1980s, Congress enacted the Liability Risk Retention Act (LRRA), which extended the Act to all types of commercial liability insurance. Under the LRRA, a domiciliary state is charged with regulating the formation and operation of a risk retention group. The LRRA pre-empts "any State law, rule regulation, or order to the extent that such law, rule, regulation or order would make unlawful, or regulate, directly or indirectly, the operation of a risk retention group." The LRRA also prohibits states from enacting regulations that discriminate against risk retention groups. However, not all non-domiciliary state regulation of an RRG is prohibited under the LRRA. RRGs must pay state premium taxes, comply with state unfair claim settlement practices statutes and register with and designate the state insurance commissioner as its agent for service of process. A state insurance commissioner can perform an examination of an RRG if the RRG's domicile state has not performed, or refuses to perform, such an examination. However, the bulk of regulation of an RRG is left to the state which licensed it. In response to the act, 44 RRGs were formed by the end of 1987. Many of the RRGs formed during this time were domiciled in Vermont, one of the leading captive domiciles in the world. Vermont already had a fully developed captive program by the time the LRRA was passed and could offer assistance in setting up RRGs in a way that other states were unprepared to do. During the mid-1990s the insurance market softened, so, in many cases, it was cheaper to purchase liability insurance through traditional insurance carriers. While many RRGs were formed during the decade, many more ceased operating. In the year 2000, the number of RRGs had only grown to 65 in the 14 years since the passage of the Act. After September 11, the insurance market hardened. This led to a period of rapid growth for risk retention groups. Between 2000 and 2008 the number of RRGs quadrupled to reach 262. Besides the hard insurance market, a number of other factors led to such rapid growth in the industry. Captive insurance really came into its own during the early 2000s with more and more states enacting captive laws and seeking alternative risk transfer vehicles as a steady source of revenue. Many states, including the District of Columbia and Montana, began to develop their captive programs, creating captive departments, and courting potential groups. Another factor that helped spur RRG growth was the increasing challenge for doctors and hospitals in the Northeast to obtain medical malpractice insurance, especially in such states as Pennsylvania and New York. RRGs in the healthcare sector expanded by nearly six times during the decade. The number of groups in this sector, always the leading sector for risk retention groups, grew from 26 to 159 between 2000 and December 2012. As of 2014, RRGs offer liability insurance coverages to a wide variety of insureds/policyholders. Besides hospitals and physicians, the healthcare sector provides liability insurance to nursing homes, dental practices, and HMOs. There are RRGs for educational institutions, for churches, and for non-profit groups. There are RRGs for agricultural concerns, national associations and state lobbyists. Every year, RRGs are emerging in new business niches responding to the need for affordable and available liability insurance. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Risk retention group」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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