Walter (Walt) R. Curtner
President of Curtner Risk Management, Inc. (CRM)

CRM is a risk management firm providing risk & insurance consulting, specializing in property & liability insurance. CRM is strickly a consulting firm, and does not sell or broker any insurance. CRM is only one of about 250 firms nationwide that provides companies and governmental entities with this expertise and/or assistance without selling insurance.

Risk & insurance consulting includes evaluating a company’s risk of financial loss arising out of loss or damage to its own property and/or liability to others, including products liability, intellectual property liability and directors & officers liability. Workers compensation is included as part of risk management consulting.

My background is that I have a BS degree from Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley in 1966 and an MBA from San Francisco State Univ. I started working in Manhattan for Johns-Manville (JM), and moved to Denver with them in 1971. I was their Sales & Payroll Tax Manager in 1974, and became JM’s Risk & Insurance Manager in 1975. From 1975-1981 I spent the majority of my time working with the Legal Dept. handling the asbestos workers compensation and liability claims. From 1981-1883 I was Director of Risk Management of Total Petroleum.

In 1984 I decided to form my own consulting firm, CRM, and have now been consulting for almost 25 years. My major clients have been Cable TV firms in the early years, then telecommunication firms and various technology firms – most of which have been located in Colorado. Over the years I have had several clients in the oil & gas industry. In addition, about 10% of my revenue comes from expert witness work with major Colorado law firms, with much of my work related to the pollution/environmental insurance issues.

I am great believer in competition, and frequently help my clients to broaden their insurance coverage while reducing their premiums by helping them to conduct a fair and effective “competitive bidding” of their property/casualty program – using two or more brokers. An important part of my service is evaluating each policy’s coverage. Commercial insurance policies are far more complicated than personal policies (such as auto and homeowners policies) and the coverages vary greatly; therefore, companies who evaluate insurance proposals based solely on price (the premium) are often comparing “apples to oranges”.

I also work with companies to provide loss control services in order to reduce: accidental losses to property, employee accidents and injury to others. Reducing accidents, injuries and property loss, leads to fewer insurance claims, and fewer claims leads to lower premiums – because commercial insurance is based in large part on the company’s loss/claim experience/history.

I have been a speaker at numerous insurance and industry conventions.