About CRICO

Protecting Providers. Promoting Safety.

What is CRICO?

Through decades of experience protecting the Harvard medical community’s clinicians and organizations, CRICO has established itself as a leader in medical professional liability (MPL) insurance. It is our mission to protect providers and promote safety.

For those providers who find themselves named in a malpractice suit, CRICO delivers a comprehensive and robust defense strategy, which includes extensive support services to help them manage what can be a long and drawn out course of events.

Our History

Founded close to 50 years ago, the CRICO insurance program includes all of the Harvard medical institutions and their affiliates, providing coverage to 32 hospitals, more than 325 other health care organizations, 18,000 physicians, 30,000 allied health professionals, and in excess of 160,000 other clinicians and employees. Soon after its inception, CRICO implemented a data-informed approach to reducing medical error through clinical analysis of malpractice claims, which has made it a leader of patient safety today.

Through its uniquely neutral position within the Harvard medical community, CRICO has been highly successful convening clinical leaders from its subscriber hospitals to discuss common areas of risk; reaching consensus on solutions that will be most effective in ensuring the safest possible health care environment for patients and providers. CRICO-supported researchers, armed with intelligence from an extensive database of MPL claims, have applied clinically coded data to identify risk reduction solutions such as simulation training, closed-loop communication, and checklists in surgical settings.

Leaders from CRICO’s community share the unique benefits of the CRICO program that demonstrate how we are helping our subscribers deliver the safest health care in the world.

AMC PSO

Driven by an interest to provide a more immediate impact on safety—mitigating the potential for repetition through real-time response to events—in 2010, the Academic Medical Center Patient Safety Organization (AMC PSO) was federally listed as a component Patient Safety Organization of RMF. Since it was established, the AMC PSO has diligently facilitated the pursuit of patient safety activities, which include the sharing of best practices through published alerts and guidelines, and convening of health care leaders in response to emerging risks. As a national convener of clinicians and health care organizations, the AMC PSO uses analysis of safety events to create learning systems and improve patient safety. Our decision support tools and clinical guidance documents are the products of our convenings.

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Candello: Transforming Risk into Opportunity

Through national partnerships, Candello, established as a division of RMF, pools malpractice data and expertise from captive and commercial professional liability insurers across the country to provide clinical risk intelligence products and solutions. Combining data from CRICO’s Harvard-affiliated members and Candello’s national partners, the data represent one-third of U.S. MPL cases, and include open and closed cases as well as cases with and without indemnity payments. An active online community facilitates peer discussion, fosters shared learning, and provides access to exclusive content. Web-based tools leverage Candello’s proprietary claims coding taxonomy to generate individual and comparative analytic reports that enable health care leaders to connect the dots from medical error to patient safety interventions and help transform risk into opportunity. Our benchmarking reports uncover the drivers of patient harm.

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Our Corporate Structure

“CRICO” refers to the following group of companies (and their respective divisions) serving the Harvard medical institutions and their affiliates.

CRICO (A Reciprocal Risk Retention Group) (“CRICO Reciprocal”), established in 2023 in Vermont as a result of a reorganization of Controlled Risk Insurance Company, Ltd.; CRICO Reciprocal was formed to provide its Harvard Medical School affiliated subscribers with insurance for their medical professional liability, general liability, and other liability exposures. In addition, CRICO Reciprocal will reinsure all of CRICO VT’s policies for policy years prior to 2024.

Controlled Risk Insurance Company of Vermont, Inc. (A Risk Retention Group) (“CRICO VT”), established in 1995 in Vermont and solely owned by RMF (defined below), entered runoff status as of January 1, 2024, and will no longer issue new insurance policies, but continues the processing and settlement of claims under the medical professional liability, general liability, and other liability policies issued before the 2024 policy year.

The Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions Incorporated (“RMF”), established in 1979 as a Massachusetts Chapter 180 non-profit corporation, applies a data-driven approach to claims management and patient safety on behalf of its members, who are also CRICO Reciprocal’s subscribers. In addition, RMF manages the day-to-day operations of CRICO Reciprocal as its attorney-in-fact and CRICO VT as a service provider.

Academic Medical Center Patient Safety Organization (“AMC PSO”), established as a division of RMF, is a federally-listed component Patient Safety Organization that performs patient safety activities as defined under federal law. As part of such activities, AMC PSO serves as a national convener of clinicians and health care organizations to promote patient safety by focusing on specific quality and safety initiatives. The AMC PSO represents and serves RMF’s members, as well as other organizations across the nation.

Candello, established as a division of RMF, leverages national partnerships to pool malpractice data and expertise from professional liability insurers across the country. Combining data from CRICO’s subscribers and Candello’s national clients, the Candello data collective represents one-third of all open and closed U.S. MPL cases. An active online community facilitates peer discussion and fosters shared learning, while web-based software tools employ Candello’s coding taxonomy to connect the dots from medical error to patient safety interventions. Leveraging people and data you trust, Candello helps transform patient risk into opportunity.

CRICO’s Insurance Program Structure Changed

On December 29, 2023, CRICO, Ltd. became CRICO Reciprocal.

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