ASI NEWS
President & CEO, Dennis Adams, to Retire
After serving American Share Insurance for 36 years, Dennis R. Adams, MBA, CPA, CFP, will soon be retiring as ASI’s President/CEO – a position he has held for more than 31 of those 36 years. In the decade prior to joining ASI as its VP of Risk Management in 1986, Mr. Adams had been a practicing CPA mainly focused on credit unions, giving him an accumulative time-in-service to credit unions of 46 years!
In September 2021, the ASI Board began its search process and expects to name ASI’s next President/CEO in the very near term.
ASI NEWS
President & CEO, Dennis Adams, to Retire
After serving American Share Insurance for 36 years, Dennis R. Adams, MBA, CPA, CFP, will soon be retiring as ASI’s President/CEO – a position he has held for more than 31 of those 36 years. In the decade prior to joining ASI as its VP of Risk Management in 1986, Mr. Adams had been a practicing CPA mainly focused on credit unions, giving him an accumulative time-in-service to credit unions of 46 years!
In September 2021, the ASI Board began its search process and expects to name ASI’s next President/CEO in the very near term.
Steady Leadership
As the main driver behind ASI’s leadership team, Adams has successfully helped guide the organization through a significant number of challenges, including:
- Surviving the post S&L debacle of the late 1980s by working with the Ohio legislature and regulators in 1986-87, thereby assuring the favorable recognition of ASI and private share insurance
- Developing ASI’s first risk management processes and initiating professional joint examination procedures with ASI’s various state credit union regulators
- Defending the private share insurance option before Congress in 1991 as it moved to pass FDICIA, the first federal law to recognize and facilitate private share insurance
- Watching as all other private insurers that existed in 1986 fade into the sunset when the fight got tough in the early 1990s
- Working with the Federal Reserve Banks when navigating Y2K
- Saving a major Nevada member credit union under the early stressors of the Great Recession and 60% housing devaluation in 2009
- Successfully working through the burdens of charging ASI’s first-ever special premium assessments to its member credit unions between 2009 and 2013 – and, at 25% less cost than that of our federal counterpart
- Rescuing select credit unions with innovative and creative pro-business solutions, such as secondary capital assistance
Proven Results
Equally important, ASI experienced tremendous success during his tenure, including:
- Enjoying 10-fold growth in assets, going from a $39M asset program in 1985, to one approaching $400 million as of year-end 2021
- Communicating the merits of private share insurance to numerous state credit union regulators and state legislators, resulting in law changes and/or regulatory approvals expanding the private share insurance option
- Reporting a stronger equity ratio than the NCUSIF, year in and year out
- Launching Excess Share Insurance Corporation (ESI) in 1993 (a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASI), which now insures over $4 billion in 227 credit unions, giving these credit unions a unique advantage over their competitors
- Working to spread the reach of ESI’s excess share insurance program from a mere handful of states at its inception, to 32 states and the District of Columbia today
Steady Leadership
As the main driver behind ASI’s leadership team, Adams has successfully helped guide the organization through a significant number of challenges, including:
- Surviving the post S&L debacle of the late 1980s by working with the Ohio legislature and regulators in 1986-87, thereby assuring the favorable recognition of ASI and private share insurance
- Developing ASI’s first risk management processes and initiating professional joint examination procedures with ASI’s various state credit union regulators
- Defending the private share insurance option before Congress in 1991 as it moved to pass FDICIA, the first federal law to recognize and facilitate private share insurance
- Watching as all other private insurers that existed in 1986 fade into the sunset when the fight got tough in the early 1990s
- Working with the Federal Reserve Banks when navigating Y2K
- Saving a major Nevada member credit union under the early stressors of the Great Recession and 60% housing devaluation in 2009
- Successfully working through the burdens of charging ASI’s first-ever special premium assessments to its member credit unions between 2009 and 2013 – and, at 25% less cost than that of our federal counterpart
- Rescuing select credit unions with innovative and creative pro-business solutions, such as secondary capital assistance
Proven Results
Equally important, ASI experienced tremendous success during his tenure, including:
- Enjoying 10-fold growth in assets, going from a $39M asset program in 1985, to one approaching $400 million as of year-end 2021
- Communicating the merits of private share insurance to numerous state credit union regulators and state legislators, resulting in law changes and/or regulatory approvals expanding the private share insurance option
- Reporting a stronger equity ratio than the NCUSIF, year in and year out
- Launching Excess Share Insurance Corporation (ESI) in 1993 (a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASI), which now insures over $4 billion in 227 credit unions, giving these credit unions a unique advantage over their competitors
- Working to spread the reach of ESI’s excess share insurance program from a mere handful of states at its inception, to 32 states and the District of Columbia today
In 1991, after observing the NCUA’s disregard of credit union input into its operation and management of the federal share insurance fund, Adams moved to create ASI’s Credit Union Advisory Council. He felt that, like a credit union, ASI needed to listen and react to the concerns and suggestions of its members/owners. He was convinced the time was right to invite CEOs from each of ASI’s insured states to come to the table. Annually since then, several dozen CEOs have had a platform from which to voice their concerns and suggestions with ASI’s management team and Board of Directors.
It was also in the early 1990s that, after ASI incurred its first corporate credit union loss, he encouraged the Company’s Board to exit the corporate credit union share insurance business. This claim against the fund was ironically driven by the same factors that created many of the losses tied to NCUA’s corporate credit union collapse of 2008 – 2010.
In his battle to preserve and grow the private share insurance option in America, Adams has worked diligently over the years to sustain a professional and interactive relationship with key regulatory authorities, select federal agencies and numerous state and federal legislators. At ASI, the overarching commitment to states’ rights, and the welfare of the credit union system, has been unwavering under his watch.
As Mr. Adams closes this long chapter in his life, he looks forward to remaining associated with ASI and ESI, so that he can share his experiences, and offer guidance where needed, with the next leader of the nation’s only non-federal share insurance provider – American Share Insurance.
