What would cause an assessment?
A. When the surplus of an insurance company reflective of NYSIR’s conservative model drops below $1.8 million, or the state superintendent of insurance deems the company impaired, an assessment may be ordered by the State Insurance Department. Q. Why did NYSIR choose to be assessable? A. NYSIR is a not-for-profit reciprocal insurer. After carefully weighing their options, the school districts that form NYSIR made a decision to become assessable. The Board of Governors determined that if the proper funding level was maintained and a strong reinsurance program was in place, an assessment would never occur. Remember, we only write one class of business ‒ New York State public schools ‒ so predictability of losses and a structured, focused reinsurance program was made easier. It made little sense for school districts to form an insurance company to control their own destiny and then pay for other insurance company failures.
