The Government of Western Australia adopted a Managed Fund approach to administer all insurable risks of its public authorities who are RiskCover Fund members (agencies) on a self-insurance basis. The RiskCover Fund is underwritten by the Crown and is managed by the Insurance Commission of Western Australia (RiskCover Division) on behalf of the Government of Western Australia and its participating state government agencies.
The Insurance Commission of Western Australia Act 1986 authorises the Insurance Commission (RiskCover Division) to:
• manage and administer insurance and risk management arrangements on behalf of Western Australian public authorities;
• provide services, facilities and advice to public authorities in respect of the management of claims against them or against funds maintained or administered by them under any written law; and
• provide advice to Government on matters relating to insurance and risk management.
Up to this point, RiskCover participating agencies have had limited involvement in alliance contracting and consequently there has been little call on RiskCover to provide services in relation to such arrangements. RiskCover's enabling legislation does not allow it to issue policies of insurance covering alliance projects, or any insurance covering non government entities.
The services RiskCover is able to offer in relation to alliance contracting are thus limited to providing insurance and risk management advice to participating state government agencies, which would include assistance:
• by way of the facilitation of a risk analysis of contracting options (i.e. alliance, design and construct, PPP etc);
• with project risk analysis, the development of risk management strategies and the implementation of a risk management framework;
• with determining the best insurance options for the Government including participating agencies' consideration of Owner Arranged Insurance versus Non Owner Participant Arranged Insurance and Alliance Arranged Insurance options;
• with the review of insurances of Non Owner Participants for the participating agency;
• with the review of insurance documentation for the Alliance for the participating agency; and
• with the selection of an insurance broker if required.