Medical Mutual CEO Dies in Plane Crash

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December 8, 2008 Monday 05:32 PM EST

493 words

Medical Mutual CEO Dies in Plane Crash

Fran Lysiak

CLEVELAND

Kent Clapp, the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Medical Mutual of Ohio, has died in a plane crash near San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was 62.

Clapp and his fiancee, Tracy Turner, 40, died Dec. 3 while returning home from a Caribbean vacation, the company said. The couple missed their commercial flight while returning from the British Virgin Islands and then booked a charter flight. The twin-engine plane was on the way to Puerto Rico when it crashed into a mountain about 13 miles east of San Juan, Medical Mutual said.

"It is difficult to put into words the loss we are feeling," Cleveland-based Medical Mutual said in a statement. "Kent took the helm of the company in 1997 during a very difficult time. It was his leadership and hard work that turned Medical Mutual into a success and an industry leader."

Clapp, who was with Medical Mutual for more than 30 years, saved the company financially, which went on to become very successful, said Ed Byers, a spokesman for Medical Mutual. "It was because of his leadership that the company thrived," he said. "That is Kent's legacy."

With annual revenues of $2 billion, Medical Mutual is the oldest and largest health insurer based in Ohio. It sells group and individual health plans, and provides third-party administrative services to group customers that self-insure.

Clapp joined Blue Cross of Northwest Ohio as a corporate controller in 1976. The company later became Medical Mutual. Working his way through the company ranks, he was named to his current post in 1997.

When he took the top spot, Clapp branched out Medical Mutual into noninsurance industries and expanded into markets outside Ohio. Today, the company does business in seven states in addition to Ohio.

Clapp belonged to several charitable and professional groups, including the board of United Way of Greater Cleveland. He was noted for his "generous spirit and philanthropic nature" of giving back to the community, Byers said.

Medical Mutual will name a successor to Clapp in the near future, Byers said. The pilot also did not survive the crash.

The company, the former Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Ohio, was removed from state supervision in March 1998. A net loss in 1996 was a major factor in the Ohio insurance department's decision to place the company under state supervision in March 1997, a department spokeswoman said at the time (BestWire, March 3, 1998).

But that was not the only reason. In March 1997, the insurance department blocked a Blue Cross merger with health care giant Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. of Nashville, Tenn. The company had spent nearly $30 million pushing for the merger, and its failure prompted a slew of lawsuits and allegations that John Burry Jr., then the company's chairman, and others in the company breached their fiduciary duty in return for lucrative compensation contracts (BestWire, March 3, 1998).

(By Fran Matso Lysiak, senior associate editor, BestWeek: [email protected])

December 9, 2008