It was the early 1980s. Malpractice cases across the country had increased in frequency and severity. Awards skyrocketed and national insurance companies began to bail from unprofitable states. The companies that remained raised rates. Copic’s physician founders feared the worst: without affordable liability insurance, doctors would leave Colorado. This would threaten the health and well-being of everyone in the state.
With support from the Colorado Medical Society, our founders went to work. They formed a team of business experts who understood their vision. They also challenged the notion that a bunch of doctors could run an insurance company. The founding doctors knew medicine and understood their peers. Business advisors agreed—preventing claims and teaching doctors to practice safely benefited everyone.
But they still needed to sell their idea to the doctors they would insure. So our physician founders went on the road. They drove countless hours to meet Colorado's 3,200 practicing physicians and shared their desire to make our state a great place to practice medicine. And they asked doctors to pledge $100 to fund this vision. Each $100 bill collected strengthened the medical society's self-insurance trust. By 1984, and with additional funding from the Colorado Medical Society, this trust became Copic Insurance, a fully licensed professional liability insurance company.
Today, Copic remains physician-directed. Having expanded our regional footprint to become the leading carrier in the Midwest/Rocky Mountain region, we have the strength and stability to support physicians, other healthcare providers, and facilities. And we have flexible options to support providers across the country. We're proud of the support we can offer medical providers and how this helps to deliver high-quality care for patients. Our success is, in large part, because we've stayed true to our founders' vision to improve medicine in the communities we serve.
Colorado physicians come together to form the Copic Trust.