National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies

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The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) is a "national trade association of mutual property and casualty insurance companies."[1] It includes 1,400 member companies, which account for "50 percent of the automobile/ homeowners market and 31 percent of the business insurance market (in the U.S.)."[2]

According to its website, NAMIC's "federal affairs office is located just blocks from the Capitol. NAMIC staff and lobbyists work on Capitol Hill to serve the interests of members companies as well as their millions of policyholders."[3]

In 2009 (the most recent year for which information is available), NAMIC had $9.9 million in gross receipts. President and CEO Charles Chamness received $489,045 in compensation from NAMIC in the same year.[4] Also in 2009, an associated organization, the NAMIC Group Insurance Trust (NGIT), earned over $3 million in gross receipts. President and CEO Charles Chamness received $557,690 in compensation from NGIT in the same year. Chamness also received $47,973 from NAMIC's wholly-owned subsidiary NAMIC Service Corporation (NSC) and $18,432 from NSC's wholly-owned subsidiary NAMIC Insurance Agency (NIA).[5] Chamness' total compensation from the above affiliated organizations in 2009 was therefore more than $1.1 million.

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

NAMIC is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Neil Alldredge, Vice President of the State and Regulatory Affairs Division of NAMIC, represents the organization as the co-chair of the Transportation Subcommittee and member of the Private Sector Executive Committee of ALEC's Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force. [6]

About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our ExposedbyCMD.org site.

Lobbying and Political Spending

The National Assn/Mutual Insurance Companies PAC gave $543,914 to federal candidates in the 2010 election cycle: in the House, $170,500 to Republicans and $86,000 to Democrats, in the Senate, $82,000 to Republicans and $15,500 to Democrats. [7]

NAMIC spent $914,000 on lobbying activities in 2010. [8]

Other Controversy

NAMIC created the website climateandinsurance.org "as a resource for industry professionals to learn more about climate change and its possible implications for the property/casualty industry," edited by David Reddick, NAMIC's Director of Public Policy Research.[9]

NAMIC stated that:

"[T]here is simply too much uncertainty about the nature of climate change—e.g., the rate at which it is occurring, the extent to which it is caused by human activity, its relationship to natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and droughts, and the economic trade-offs that would be entailed by various actions that might be taken to prevent further warming—for regulators to assume that all insurers have a material exposure to 'climate risk' sufficient to justify mandatory 'disclosure' of this purported risk to regulators and the public. . . . "In short, because serious questions have been raised about the integrity of contemporary climate science, NAMIC believes it would be exceedingly risky for any insurance company to make important business decisions based on an uncritical acceptance of the dominant scientific paradigm on climate change. Put differently, we believe there is considerable risk involved in an approach to assessing 'climate risk' that assumes the validity of any particular theory or set of beliefs about anthropogenic global warming."[10]

(Detlefsen's is referencing the 2009 hacking incident that global warming skeptics refer to as Climategate)

Members

The member directory at NAMIC's website is unavailable in June 2011 and neither cached on Google nor archived by the Wayback Machine.[11]

Key Staff

  • Charles Chamness, President & CEO
  • Gregg Dykstra, Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel
  • Rae Malesh, Assistant to the President
  • M. Denise Verona, Administrator - Arbitration/State Lobbying
  • Tonya Fletcher, Operations Support Specialist
  • Brent Bahler, Vice President - Public Affairs
  • Matt Brady, Director of Media Relations
  • Lisa Floreancig, Director of Communications - State and Policy Affairs
  • Neil Alldredge, Senior Vice President - State & Policy Affairs
  • William Boyd, Financial Regulation Manager
  • Marsha Brown, Regulatory Affairs Counsel
  • Erin Collins, State Affairs Manager - Mid-Atlantic Region
  • Robert Detlefsen, Ph.D., Vice President - Public Policy
  • Mark Johnston, State Affairs Manager - Midwest Region
  • Christian Rataj, State Affairs Manager - Western Region
  • David Reddick, Ph.D., Associate Director - Public Policy
  • Elizabeth Reynolds, State Affairs Manager, Southeast Region
  • Paul Tetrault, State Affairs Manager - Northeast Region
  • Joseph Thesing, Assistant Vice President - State Affairs
  • Jon Bergner, Federal Affairs Manager
  • Kristen Eichhorn, Senior Administrative Assistant
  • Matt Gannon, Assistant Vice President - Federal Affairs
  • Jimi Grande, Senior Vice President - Federal and Political Affairs
  • Georgiann Howell, Director of Operations, Federal and Political Affairs
  • Dylan Jones, Director - Federal and Political Affairs
  • Stephanie Sheridan, PAC Manager
  • Irica Solomon, Political Director
  • George Krempley, President/CEO, NAMIC Insurance Co., Inc.
  • Mary Cady, Operations Manager, NAMIC Insurance Agency

Contact Information

Indianapolis Office National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies 3601 Vincennes Road Indianapolis, IN 46268 Telephone: (317) 875-5250 Fax: (317) 879-8408

Washington D.C. Office National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies 122 C Street N.W. Suite 540 Washington, D.C. 20001 Telephone: (202) 628-1558 Fax: (202) 628-1601

Website: http://www.namic.org/

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

External resources

External articles

References

  1. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), organization website, accessed June 15, 2011
  2. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies About NAMIC, organization website, accessed June 15, 2011
  3. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies NAMIC History, organization website, accessed June 15, 2011
  4. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies 2009 Form 990, Annual IRS Filing, February 26, 2011
  5. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies 2009 Form 990, Annual IRS Filing, July 14, 2010
  6. ↑ Commerce, Insurance,Econ Devp't Exec Committee, ALEC website, accessed July 9, 2011.
  7. ↑ Center for Responsive Politics, NAMIC PAC 2010 contributions, Open Secrets, accessed July 9, 2011.
  8. ↑ Center for Responsive Politics, NAMIC Lobbying expenditures, Open Secrets, accessed July 9, 2011.
  9. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies About, ClimateandInsurance.org, organization website, accessed June 15, 2011
  10. ↑ Robert Detlefsen, Vice President of Public Policy, National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies RE: Documents related to the Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Survey, Letter to Eric Nordman, National Association of Insurance Commissioners, via email to Pam Simpson, January 8, 2010
  11. ↑ National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies NAMIC Membership, organization website, accessed June 15, 2011
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