Behind the Coverage: Meet Our Underwriting Team Leaders

This year, in each issue of The Agent’s Advocate, we are giving you an inside view of the experience and capabilities of the teams that work tirelessly behind the scenes to provide your clients with superior coverage and services.

With the third installment of Behind the Coverage, we’d like to explain some key points behind The Doctors Company’s admitted medical professional liability (MPL) underwriting philosophy and appetite and give you valuable submission tips. You’ll also get to know more about our first-rate admitted MPL Underwriting team leaders, who ensure that the risks you submit on behalf of your clients are priced appropriately and responsibly.

Underwriting a Submission

For those of you who may be new to the underwriting process, here’s a short explanation of the underwriting of a policy.

Underwriting is both a science and an art. The science of underwriting involves actuarial numbers, using mathematical and statistical analysis to assess the risk being considered. Actuaries use data-driven methods to predict future events and associated costs.

Once the actuarial analysis has concluded, that’s when the art form we call underwriting comes into play, in which underwriters apply that actuarial analysis to the unique factors of each individual risk—and ultimately evaluate the narrative, or “story,” of the risk that was provided in the submission.

The main question underwriters generally have when reviewing a submission is: What is different about this particular risk and how should those unique factors within the narrative affect exposure and pricing?

Answering this question requires subjective judgment when the underwriter has “the complete story.” Once a submission can be considered complete, and the underwriter feels comfortable with all of the details of the risk being submitted, the underwriter can then make a pricing decision based on both factual evidence and intuition, after fully assessing the risk and understanding the needs of the client/applicant.

That’s underwriting of a policy explained in its simplest form. As an agent or broker, you are well aware of the thousands of nuances that can complicate underwriting a risk, and explaining all those nuances is not the goal of this profile.

Teamwork Philosophy

What we would like to explain is that our underwriters are your trusted business partners. They are here for you and your clients, and establishing a solid business relationship with your underwriter(s) just makes business sense—a good working relationship with your underwriter(s) can help increase communication, efficiency, and potential turnaround time of submissions. Our underwriters want to reach the point where they are able to say to you, “Yes, we’ll write that risk,” because it will be a win-win for both The Doctors Company and you and your clients. And the results of our 2024 Member Experience Survey confirm your clients agree on this win-win: 93 percent of our responding members agree that once that quote is placed in front of them, it is a fair price offered by The Doctors Company.

This friendly underwriting philosophy starts at the top and permeates down to all of our underwriters and analysts, which is why we would like to introduce you to our exceptional Underwriting leadership team that puts this philosophy into practice on a daily basis, both nationally and regionally.

Underwriting National Senior Vice President

Todd Zeiter is Senior Vice President of National Underwriting, The Doctors Company, working out of the Napa headquarters. He began his career working with managing general underwriters (MGUs) specializing in the medical professional liability sector, aiding in the creation and capitalization of professional liability risk retention groups, and later moved to the primary carrier sector. Todd has held successive management positions at both NORCAL Mutual and The Doctors Company.

His more than 35 years of experience encompasses underwriting of medical and hospital professional liability risks, the underwriting and management of assumed reinsurance, the management and placement of ceded reinsurance, creation and management of alternative risk vehicles such as risk retention groups and captive insurance companies, loss portfolio transfers and novations, underwriting of non-healthcare-related alternative risks, fronting, ratemaking, acquired company integration, and experience working in Business Development managing direct sales and national program relationships.

Todd earned his bachelor of science degree from the University of California, Davis, majoring in managerial economics with a minor in statistics.

Underwriting Portfolio Management National Vice President

Cindy Grim, FCAS, is Vice President of Underwriting Portfolio Management with The Doctors Company. She began her career as an actuarial trainee with The St. Paul Companies in St. Paul, Minnesota. She achieved her fellowship designation while working in The St. Paul’s Medical Professional Liability unit. Cindy spent much of her career as an actuary working for The St. Paul, CNA, The Travelers, and her own consulting company. She joined The Doctors Company in 2018 in the Underwriting Department, increasing her responsibility to include alternative risk underwriting in 2020.

Her 30-plus years of experience encompasses developing rates for hospital, nursing home, facility, and other provider professional liability risks as well as pricing large healthcare accounts. In 2020, Cindy’s role was expanded to manage alternative risk vehicles such as risk retention groups, captive insurance companies, loss portfolio transfers, novations, and fronting.

Cindy earned her bachelor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point, majoring in math with a minor in computer science. She is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

With her extensive and varied experience in insurance company operations, Cindy brings value to The Doctors Company’s overall strategic goals and target markets and is a valued member of the National Underwriting management team.

Underwriting Regional Leaders

Region I

Deanna Christofferson, RPLU, AIS, is the Vice President of Underwriting for The Doctors Company’s Region I. Over her nearly 28-year tenure at The Doctors Company, she has held positions in the Internal Audit and Finance departments but has spent most of her career in Underwriting writing large custom multispecialty/state accounts. Deanna is responsible for all of Region I Underwriting, including the region’s custom accounts.

Deanna is passionate about successfully configuring flexible coverage solutions for the ever-changing healthcare environment.

Deanna has a bachelor’s degree in business, human resources, from Sacramento State University. She is a Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU) and is a licensed property and casualty agent in California.

Region II

Sonya Ziegler, CPCU, RPLU, is Vice President of Underwriting for The Doctors Company’s Region II. Her role includes oversight and handling of the region’s custom and high-profile complex accounts.

Sonya possesses a wealth of broad-based underwriting knowledge, including medical malpractice, excess/umbrella, employment practices liability insurance (EPLI), employee benefits liability (EBL), and directors and officers (D&O) coverage. Her background includes experience as Underwriting Consultant Director at CNA from 2010 to 2016, where she underwrote a book of hospital, physician, and allied health business, and was also a Key Accounts Relationship Manager. Prior to that, Sonya was a Senior Underwriter at Medical Protective from 2006 to 2010, and Lead Underwriter at ERC/Medical Protective from 2002 to 2006, where she helped jumpstart the primary hospital book and develop new markets. Her early career included positions as Senior Underwriter at The Doctors Company and Underwriter, Senior Staff Underwriter, and Product Manager at PHICO Insurance Company.

Sonya holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Susquehanna University and is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU).

Blake McLendon, RPLU, is the Assistant Vice President of Underwriting for The Doctors Company’s Region II. Blake has over 22 years of experience working in underwriting. He began his underwriting career at AP Capital and was part of its acquisition by The Doctors Company in 2011. Blake oversees standard policies for Region II and dedicates his time to staff development, revenue management, and strategic planning.

Blake earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Michigan State University and received his Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU) designation in 2016. He actively encourages his staff to work towards continuous education in work and in life.

Region III

Laura Archer, CPCU, is the Vice President of Underwriting for The Doctors Company’s Region III. Laura has worked in underwriting for almost 30 years and started her professional liability career at Coverys, formerly known as ProMutual Group, in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1995.

Prior to joining The Doctors Company in 2011, Laura worked at First Professionals Insurance Company (FPIC) for almost 10 years as Vice President of Underwriting. She also worked at Brown & Brown in Tampa, Florida, where she evaluated Florida, Texas, and Georgia risks.

Laura earned her bachelor’s degree in management at Bryant University. She earned her Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation in 1998. She is a licensed agent in Florida.

Admitted MPL Appetite and Focus

• Solo practitioners (physicians, surgeons, and dentists)
• Groups (small and large)
• Affiliated facilities (non-acute)
• Advanced practice clinicians

The Doctors Company writes all specialties and has an appetite for all standard business risks. In addition, we encourage solo-to-five-physician submissions for our new business bonus commission program that is open to all agents and brokers. An additional 5 percent commission (for all states except New York) will be paid as new business and for the first policy renewal for these submissions.

Other Capabilities

• Fronting agreements
• Loss portfolio transfers
• Novations
• Excess/umbrella policies (with the primary risk)

What Can You Do to Help Improve the Submission Process?

Details, details, and more details. Help us help you!

We want the submission process to go as smoothly for us as it does for you and your clients. And to do that, we need to fully understand your client’s story through the lens of an underwriter.

The better description of the risk you are asking us to consider insuring, the more likely we are to efficiently assess the risk and turn around with a quote for you to present to your client.

Here are some helpful tips that can make the submission process go smoother.

Make the Submission Stand Out

Aside from the standard questions and requirements listed on the application for coverage, making the submission stand out by including details like the following can help our underwriters more appropriately assess the risk you have submitted:

• Complete application
• Email dialogue—specifications, options, and target
• Supplemental procedural questionnaires (if applicable)
• Currently valued loss runs (within 90 days of the submission)
• Declarations page
• CV (curriculum vitae)

Avoid the Pitfalls

There are some general pitfalls you can avoid with your submission to lessen the chances of a delay in receiving a quote back, such as:

• Unanswered application questions
• Missing details on “yes” questions
• Outdated or missing documents
• Missing signatures
• Not communicating the context—don’t be afraid to share what you are looking for

Avoiding these pitfalls and making your submissions stand out to our underwriters is very important. We are here to serve you and your clients—and one of our biggest underwriting mantras we follow is to get to that “Yes, we’ll write that risk” discussion, and get to it as quickly as possible.

We hope that building a relationship with your underwriter becomes a best practice of yours, and if you’re ever unsure about anything underwriting-related, give your underwriter a call or send an email to open the channels of communication. Strengthening relationships can work wonders and lead to more win-win moments for all of us.

Please send all admitted MPL submissions containing over 10 risks and all add-on requests for admitted MPL submissions to TDCSubmissions@thedoctors.com. We encourage submissions of 10 or fewer risks to be submitted through the Quick Quote tool in the Agent/Broker Portal.