Fort Wayne company provides insurance for presidential campaigns
News Coverage:
Published: January 29, 2016
Updated: January 30, 2016
Fort Wayne company provides insurance for presidential campaigns
Angelica Robinson
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE)- We see them everyday: presidential hopefuls holding rallies, shaking hands, and kissing babies. But have you ever wondered who covers the event if something went wrong? K&K Insurance, in Fort Wayne, is behind many of the presidential campaigns going on right now.
K&K Insurance is a leading provider of sports, leisure and entertainment insurance products. But according to Senior Underwriter, Warren Mead, the company first took on political events about 28 years ago. In 1988, they insured the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Eight years later, in 1996, they insured the Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas.
“After that, it was kind of a quiet period for us until we got involved in both of the national conventions in 2012,” said Mead. “The Republicans were in Tampa and the Democrats were in Charlotte. We wrote both of those events, which was a major undertaking.”
That was also the first year K&K Insurance insured a presidential campaign. It was for President Barack Obama. According to Mead, that is what set the stage for the company’s involvement in the current presidential campaign accounts.
This year K&K has accounts with Republican candidates Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rand Paul, Governor Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Mead is over all of those insurance policies with the exception of Clinton’s. According to Mead, it doesn’t matter if the crowd is big or small there’s a certain level of risk with hosting a political rally.
“From a security or reactionary stand point, you never know what’s going to happen,” said Mead. “If something bad were to happen [someone] could get injured. That’s the worst case scenario. If something does go wrong the insurance coverage they have is the first step to make everything right again.”
This week has been particularly busy for him with the Iowa caucuses ahead.
“Everyone of them have had a hurried up request for a certificate for a venue they want to go into,” said Mead. “In Iowa right now they are running everywhere out there. They are having events here, there, and everywhere with the caucus coming up Monday. So we’ll get numerous requests, because until the venue receives that certificate as proof of coverage, they won’t let them have access to the building.”
Take Donald Trump, for example. With short notice, He decided to boycott of the final debate before the Iowa caucuses. Instead he held a rally to raise money for veterans at Drake University.
“I hadn’t seen anything about the event until [Thursday] morning when we got a rush email because the university required certificate of insurance,” said Mead. “So first thing I did was take care of that for him.”
Since it’s inception in 1952, the company prides itself on insuring “unusual and unique” risks. For Mead, that’s exactly what makes the job so interesting.
“With these its new every four years so it puts it in a whole unique category where you have to come at it with a lot of insight and expectation as opposed to facts and figures,” he said.
