National Underwriter - October 3, 2011

would [want to] manage it,” Arsenault says.

And how a lawyer manages a claim is “certainly not how a risk manager would manage it—which is to find out how it happened. And if it did happen, find a way to mitigate the loss and what can be done to resolve it” and how to prevent it from happening again, says Arsenault.

Finding a paradigm for risk management that is “considerate of the church’s mission and is looking for the truth and facing the truth honestly, without giving away the bank and caving in to plaintiff’s lawyers, is challenging—but it can be done,” he says. “You can manage risk pastorally as well as be fair.”

Arsenault turned to the expertise of The McCalmon Group Inc. in Tulsa, Okla., which provides training to improve safety in the workplace and lower claims.

“The importance of an organization like that is our best dollars are spent in raising awareness and educating people to risk—because that goes a long way in preventing things from happening,” Arsenault says.

And even when bad things do happen, as they inevitably will, he notes, “you have raised the awareness to a level where

DON’T LET THE
EXPERTS DECIDE

As a risk manager in the church, Arsenault says he engages experts—but does not let those experts become decision makers.

In fact, in his view, allowing experts to make the call on claims, instead of church leaders, “is one of the mistakes the church has made” in handling claims in the past.

If the loss is valued at $25,000, for ex-
ample, “I don’t want to spend that much
on a lawyer arguing—and then have to
pay for the loss, too,” Arsenault says. “You
need to manage all the costs associated
with the claim.”
Arsenault emphasizes, “If I had one
thing to repeat [to other risk managers], it
would be that lawyers should not be deci-
sion makers—they are experts. Risk manag-
ers can be experts, the claims adjuster is an
expert—but there is a tendency when there
is a difficult decision to be made to want to
put it off on the expert,” instead of where it
best belongs, Arsenault argues.

The decision maker, whether it be a
corporate officer “or the bishop, has to ul-
timately accept the responsibility to gather
the right kind of expertise and to make a
decision, to render a judgment.”
risk-management efforts, says Arsenault.

Finding a paradigm for risk management that is “considerate of the church’s mission and is looking for the truth and facing the truth honestly, without giving away the bank and caving in to plaintiff’s lawyers, is challenging—but it can be done. You can manage risk pastorally as well as be fair.”

Monsignor Edward J. Arsenault

RAISING AWARENESS

To develop a platform to raise awareness
and to orient those who work in the
church toward helping create a safe envi-
ronment for children and young people,
the community is ready to respond. They
won’t say ‘it’s none of my business.’”
Now, he says, those who work with chil-
dren on behalf of the church “have been
trained that if they are suspicious about the
behavior of an adult around a minor they
should do the right thing—call someone
with authority to look into it. Call the civil
authorities. Notify church authorities. This
creates a responsible environment that
ultimately mitigates the risk.”
He adds, “It’s a lot easier to deal, for
example, with a boundary violation by an
adult employee with a minor six months
after it happens than to deal with it 15
years after it’s happened. So creating that
kind of awareness and an environment
that’s oriented to education is key.”
The programs that have been created,
he says, have “made a big difference in the
church. Our claims are much, much lower
in terms of malfeasance with minors by
adults in the church.”
At least $20.9 million in 2009 was spent
by dioceses for child-protection efforts such
as safe-environment coordinators, training
programs and background checks.