For most of Dr. Crowe’s medical career, he was engaged in balancing a successful medical practice with building one of the largest medical malpractice insurance companies in the United States.
As a practicing urologist, in 1976, Dr. Crowe was chosen by the State Medical Association to lead a group of physicians in the development of a plan to form a malpractice insurance company. This became necessary when all but one of the major national insurance companies left almost all Alabama physicians with the prospect of practicing medicine without liability insurance.
After unsuccessful attempts to find coverage with companies in the U.S. and Europe, Dr. Crowe and his colleagues formed the Mutual Assurance Society of Alabama (MASA) in 1976. A key part of their strategy was the defense of every single case in which there was no negligence. At that time, the national trend was to settle most cases, and that had spawned a large number of frivolous malpractice suits, resulting in the unsafe depletion of the reserves of the companies that wrote this insurance.
Mutual Assurance was one of nearly 50 policyholder-founded companies to emerge from the turbulent liability climate in the U.S. in the seventies. They were derisively called “bedpan mutuals” by the traditional insurance industry experts who predicted that most of them would not survive (and this prediction proved true).
This was not the case for MASA, and by 1985, had paid off both its $5.5 million bank loan and the direct $2.5 million capital loans from physicians. At that time, the company had expanded through the provision of dental liability insurance and hospital liability insurance. Under Dr. Crowe’s leadership, the company continued to prosper.
Mutual Assurance demutualized and began trading on the NASDAQ system in September 1991. Policyholders received stock valued at $10.00 per share and the company’s market capitalization was $69 million. In 1993, Dr. Crowe retired from the active practice of medicine to devote all his time and energy to leading the company. In 1994, Mutual Assurance began to move outside Alabama and acquired insurance companies and books of business in West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri while once more changing the name of the company to MAIC Holdings. By 1996, MAIC Holdings moved to the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $129 million. Expansion continued throughout the Southeast and Midwest.
In 2001, its merger with Professional Group, a Michigan-based insurer of similar size, was completed. The merger resulted in the creation of ProAssurance, a New York Stock Exchange company with a market capitalization of $450 million. The combined company is the product of 13 separate M & A transactions and employs almost 600 people.
Today, ProAssurance is the 4th largest medical malpractice company in the United States and its market capitalization is approaching $2 billion. Over the past 30 years since its founding, the written premium has grown from $8 million to approximately $550 million in 2007. The company insures more than 30,000 physicians with more than 35,000 policies in force, including most physicians in private practice in the state of Alabama.
The leadership and determination of Derrill Crowe led a dedicated group of employees who adopted his vision, and in three decades, turned a single-state insurance company into a market leader that has delivered financial security and lasting value to its policyholders, shareholders, and employees.
In the 1980s, Dr. Crowe was also a leader in two revolutionary advances in Alabama healthcare. He was instrumental in developing the first free-standing, physician-owned outpatient surgery center in Alabama (now known as the Outpatient Care Center); and he initiated outpatient treatment of kidney stones by Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy. This treatment alternative was established in a manner that minimized the cost of care while making it readily available within a cooperative physician network throughout Alabama.
Dr. Crowe is a native of Troy, Alabama, and did undergraduate work at Howard College (now known as Samford University) in Birmingham. He completed his graduate medical education at the University of Alabama Medical College in 1962. Dr. Crowe completed his internship in 1963 and a surgical residency in 1964, both at Lloyd Noland Hospital in Birmingham. He underwent residency training in Urology at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, which he completed in 1967. Dr. Crowe is also a 1990 graduate of the prestigious Owner/President Management Program at Harvard University’s School of Business.
Throughout his 40-year career, Dr. Crowe has been active in organized medicine, serving his colleagues and The Medical Association of the State of Alabama in a variety of positions including their Board of Censors and the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners among others, he was also a member of the Jefferson County Medical Society. In early 1985, he was asked to serve as the chairman of the Alabama Certificate of Need Board.
Dr. Crowe sits on the Board of Advisors at his collegiate alma mater, Samford University, and was the commencement speaker for Samford’s 1996 graduation at which time he also received his undergraduate degree.
Dr. Crowe was honored by the Birmingham News as “CEO of the Year” for 2004 for his role in establishing ProAssurance as a leader in Alabama and the nation. One of the judges said of him, “Derrill has line up ProAssurance against all the competition, and they have the best balance sheet, the best management, and the best reserve situation.” In March 2008, Dr. Crowe was elected to the Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame, which honored him for his work in medicine and at ProAssurance.
