ABSTRACT
Pools, arguably, are the most significant innovation in public sector risk management over the past 40 years. Certainly, this is true in the United States. Arising initially as a response to commercial insurance unavailability and unaffordability, the pooling world has moved from being simply a response to a crisis to a stable source of coverage and risk services. From its beginnings in the early 1970s, the pooling movement has grown to a point where pools can be found almost everywhere in the country, and estimates indicate that approximately 80% of all public entities now participate in pooling. Although these pools follow a generally consistent approach, beneath the surface, there is an extraordinary range of differences. Some have hundreds of member entities, some have only a handful; some offer a single line of coverage—such as workers’ compensation, some offer a wide array of coverages; and some specialize in towns and villages, some in school districts. One thing is, however, fairly consistent; all tend to limit themselves to small- and medium-sized entities. As pools have matured, they have begun to look less and less like mutual insurance operations and more like risk management service-providing organizations. In addition to providing coverage for important risks, many pools are—in effect—the risk managers for their member entities, providing training and education, loss control and safety services, and a number of other related services.
