New Jersey medical malpractice insurance, NJ malpractice insurance, medical liability insurance New Jersey, Conventus Inter-Insurance Exchange.

To provide stable, secure, quality insurance protection to our members at cost, with no profit objective.
To operate Conventus as a physician owned and physician governed reciprocal insurance exchange that places its members’ best interests first.
To maintain our commitment to exclusively serving New Jersey-based physicians.

Conventus Inter-Insurance Exchange is the only medical professional liability insurer in New Jersey that is both owned and controlled by its members, which means that our physician-members alone set the priorities and control the direction of the Exchange. Rated A Prime by actuarial services firm Demotech, Conventus has a Board of Governors comprised entirely of practicing physician-owners who advise the Attorney-in-Fact, NIP Management Company, LLC, on issues that are important to the membership. The management team at NIP Management has extensive experience in medical professional liability insurance and in managing underwriting results for companies like Conventus. Members also participate on committees such as risk management, underwriting, claims management and professional affairs.

Since its inception, Conventus has employed a conservative, fiscally responsible approach to capitalization, pricing and admissions. This approach has allowed Conventus to build a company that is financially strong and ideally positioned for long-term growth and success. We also focus on keeping our premiums low while ensuring that the rates are high enough to maintain the financial strength of the company. Because we are a not-for-profit company, if the premiums we collect consistently exceed our costs, we will return the excess to members in the form of dividends (pending approval of the Board of Governors). Conventus does not have outside shareholders, so we are not influenced by the profit motives of others. Additionally, we do not have financial obligations that we cannot meet as a result of years of negative operating history.

Our claims-made policy form, the widely-accepted standard form of coverage across the country, has been proven to stand the test of time. This form enables us to provide increased protection to our members because it is supported by “A” rated reinsurance companies. Reinsurance is a mechanism that allows an insurance company to transfer risk to other financially strong entities, thus protecting its assets by limiting the impact of unanticipated severity of claims.

Conventus is committed to protecting our members’ professional reputation by providing the most vigorous and competent investigation and defense possible. We make sure that our members are involved early in the claims management process and that they remain fully informed throughout. This enables us to provide expert claims management, which is critical in controlling costs over the long term. In addition, all Conventus policies include Consent to Settle rights. Therefore, claims are not settled without the written approval of the physician, unless a judgment has been entered or other situations as specified in the policy. Having a “Consent to Settle” provision is more evidence of Conventus’ commitment to member involvement. Finally, Conventus has assembled a formidable Defense Panel of nine well-respected New Jersey law firms, each carefully selected to provide our members the strongest, most aggressive defense possible against non-meritorious claims.

The team at Conventus operates the company by the following core values:

Integrity in everything we do
Passionate about delivering value to our members
Prudently manage our resources

The genesis of Conventus was a result of the deteriorating market conditions in New Jersey in 2002. The NIP Group was approached by a group of physicians to develop a response to this problem because of the company’s long history of building successful underwriting programs that outperform industry standards.

The team at NIP spent considerable time researching the market and evaluating physician owned companies throughout the country. Our goal was to build a best-in-class reciprocal that would stand the test of time and serve the New Jersey physician community better than ever. We borrowed best practices from successful companies and identified lessons learned from failed enterprises. We recruited the best partners and employees available, and launched Conventus Inter-Insurance Exchange. Since its launch, the exchange has gained well over 1000 members, and continues its steady, stable growth.