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A Users Guide to Financial Assurances

David Dybdahl
Noah Krantz
American Risk Management Resources Network (ARMR)
Madison, Wisconsin

The proof of financial assurance has been a regulatory tool in environmental protection regulations for many decades. Financial assurance is especially important to the regulators and sponsors of stream and wetland mitigation projects. In practice, extreme differences of up to 4000% have been observed in the amounts of financial assurance required in comparable mitigation projects. Extreme differences also exist in the expected efficacy and fully burdened cost of the allowable proof of financial assurance mechanisms.

In this session, a Big-10 university-level risk management educator and practicing insurance broker compares and contrasts the wide range of financial assurance options in use today on mitigation projects.

About David Dybdahl, CPCU, ARM, MBA
David Dybdahl CPCU, ARM, MBA is the founder and CEO of American Risk Management Resources Network, LLC. (ARMR) ARMR is an insurance brokerage and risk management consulting/expert witness consulting firm. His past clients include;

The U.S. EPA, The Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Justice Department, The U.S. Department of Energy, The Michigan Attorney General’s Office and the Minnesota Department of Commerce. He is a contributing author in over thirty university-level insurance textbooks and has served as an expert witness in over $10 billion in litigated environmental damages. He holds a master's and bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with dual majors in risk management and insurance and corporate finance. He specializes in environmental risk management. In 2021, he was one of 20 individuals inducted into the Insurance Business America Hall of Fame. His favorite course in college was Wildlife Ecology, taught by the legacy professors of Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.