October 5, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Jennifer Bruce (Jennifer.bruce@arkansas.gov • 501.371.2622)

AR Insurance Department Risk Management Division Recognized

2020 innovation award earned for Loss Prevention Evaluation Report (LPER) system

LITTLE ROCK – The State Risk and Insurance Management Association (STRIMA) recently named the Arkansas Insurance Department’s (AID) Risk Management Division as the recipient of the 2020 Award for Innovative Risk Management (AFIRM) for its Loss Prevention Evaluation Report (LPER) system, an adaptable tool that assists state agencies in prioritizing and budgeting loss prevention inspection findings.

Created by Dr. Ken Dolan of the AID Risk Management Division, the LPER system utilizes certain terminology to characterize a state agency’s risk profile. With a focus on property and life safety exposures for the Arkansas Multi-Agency Insurance Trust (AMAIT), identified risks are rated according to occurrence probabilities and expected operational impacts. This is intended to assist an agency in determining its priorities for remediation of identified hazards and to support its budgeting efforts.

"I am extremely proud of the work of AID's Risk Management Division, and the work that went into being recognized with the award from STRIMA," said Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Alan McClain. "I am confident our state agency customers will be very well served by this new tool which will allow relevant data to be used to drive key insurance coverage decisions, resulting in more efficient use of state resources.  Congratulations to Director Mark Guinee, Dr. Dolan, and the rest of the Risk Management Team at AID."

The Risk Management Division has been implementing the LPER system for nearly two years and state agencies have already benefited from its results and recommendations. Agency stakeholders use the system's loss prevention analysis to decide which areas to initially focus capital expenditures in order to lower the agency's financial exposures to risk hazards. Prior to the LPER system, no formal analytics system existed.

The Risk Management Division is the second division of the AID to receive the innovation award from STRIMA in the last two years. In 2019, the Public Employee Claims Division (PECD) received the AFIRM for its state employee workers’ compensation pharmacy benefit management program in partnership with the UAMS College of Pharmacy and Optum.

About the Arkansas Insurance Department:

The Arkansas Insurance Department, a division of the Arkansas Department of Commerce, was created on March 7, 1917, by an Act of the Arkansas General Assembly. For more information on the Arkansas Insurance Department, please visit http://insurance.arkansas.gov, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ARInsuranceDept and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ArkansasInsuranceDepartment.

The Arkansas Department of Commerce is the umbrella department for workforce and economic development drivers. Its divisions and regulatory boards include Division of Aeronautics, Waterways Commission, Wine Producers Council, Division of Workforce Services, Office of Skills Development, State Bank Department, Insurance Department, Securities Department, Economic Development Commission and Development Finance Authority. It was established July 2019 as part of Governor Asa Hutchinson’s wide-sweeping efficiency and transformation efforts to reduce 42 cabinet agencies to 15 while maintaining services for all Arkansans.