Philip Olsson, general counsel to the Minneapolis-based association, interviewed here during NRRA's joint annual conference with the Captive Insurance Companies Association, said that the NRRA has for some time been looking to expand the coverages that risk retention groups could write.

The effort underway now, he said, "intersects with the current hard market, where there is a need for property coverage, in particular."

Association members, he said, have "a practical problem of only writing liability coverage and competing with full-line insurance companies that can offer a variety of coverages."

Mr. Olsson said that a group of NRRA members met to draft legislation that might expand this authority, "and it ended up with a fairly simple answer that will leave in place current restrictions against writing personal lines or against writing statutory workers' compensation coverage."

The draft leaves all other commercial coverages open to risk retention group writings, he said.

"We think this is appropriate in the current hard market, and we think risk retention groups have done well with liability coverage. It's time to move into these other coverages," he added.

Douglas Barnes, executive director for NRRA, said conference registrations spiked noticeably three weeks ago, after the association sent letters to 375 risk retention groups and purchasing groups announcing plans to seek amendments to the LRRA.

The letter noted that the Government Affairs Committee of NRRA "is compiling a draft of proposed amendments to the Liability Risk Retention Act, including the expansion of the LRRA to include property coverage." The letter also announced that a discussion of the amendment had been added to the conference program.

NRRA has 101 members, Mr. Barnes noted. He said there are about 75 risk retention groups in the United States and 700 purchasing groups. Because the LRRA is a federal act, risk retention and purchasing groups are permitted to do business in every state, he said.