Consulting Biographical & Contact Information
John J. O’Brien is an attorney and insurance specialist with over thirty years experience in insurance, captive insurance, trial practice and insurance law. He holds the insurance designations of Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter. He has written extensively on risk, addressed conferences nationwide and testified as an insurance expert in state and federal courts.
John is a native of Philadelphia and a graduate of La Salle University. He earned his law degree at the University of Tennessee. He began his insurance career as an insurance agent and during the course of his professional career, he has served as Vice President and General Counsel of American Patriot Insurance Company, Associate General Counsel of National Home Insurance Company, Counsel at IDS Insurance Company (now Amerisure ), and Counsel at Colonial Penn Insurance Company. He founded O’Brien and Hennessy, a leading national insurance subrogation law firm, and served on the board of the National Association of Subrogation Professionals.
He has served on boards of insurance associations, municipal government, chambers of commerce, home healthcare agencies, historic preservation and conservation groups. He served as the Council President of the West Chester, Pa. Borough Council and President of the West Chester Chamber of Commerce. His law practices included advising physicians on corporate formation, asset protection and estate planning matters. He has also tried numerous civil and criminal cases including trials of med-mal cases.
Lack of availability of civil right’s violation liability insurance for municipalities in the 1980s led him to explore the feasibility of forming a group captive for municipalities to provide this coverage and served as his introduction to Bermuda and captive insurance.
Generally acknowledged as one of the earliest proponents of the captive industry in South Carolina, he founded the first captive insurance management company (Charleston Captive Management Company) in the state. He helped formed the South Carolina Captive Insurance Association serving as president and a member of the board of directors. He was instrumental in establishing the Captive Insurance Education Certificate Program and in the formation of the Friendly Society Restored, an organization composed of captive service providers in South Carolina. He is a member of the board of directors of The International Center for Captive Insurance Educational and an instructor of ICCIE’s course in professional ethics.
He is a member of the insurance committee of the South Carolina Bar Association.
He has participated in the establishing of many captive insurance companies and risk retention groups and serves on the board of the attorney in fact for Positive Physicians, a Pennsylvania reciprocal endorsed by the Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society. John focuses his health care captive consulting on adding value to the formation and ongoing operation of risk retention groups through attention to patient care first as well as wealth accumulation and preservation for physicians through loss control and well proven formulas for success.
His company Charleston Captive Management Company was acquired by Wilmington Trust in 2005. After serving a stint as Vice President of Wilmington Trust during its entry into captive insurance management, he has reentered the practice of insurance law and launched an insurance consultant practice where he advises groups on the formation and operation of captives and risk retention groups with emphasis on the domiciles of South Carolina and Bermuda. He is a proponent of establishing branch captives for employee benefits in South Carolina and reinsurance captives in Bermuda in various business plan cooperative strategies. He refers to this as the “triple 7 captive incentive” representing the 777 nautical miles between Charleston and Bermuda.
John J. O’Brien JD, CLU, CPCU
A Professional Corporation
Captive Insurance Consulting, Legal and Insurance Expert Services
Garden House
12 Franklin Street
Charleston, South Carolina 29401
Tel: 1-843-737- 2738 Fax: 1-843-723-2708
Email: lionsthree@aol.com
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