Business Insurance Risk Manager of the Year® James Hinton dies
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James D. Hinton, Business Insurance's 2005 Risk Manager of the Year®, passed away Sept. 21.
Mr. Hinton, 63, spent most of his career working for multihospital corporation HCA Inc. in Nashville, Tenn., where he was vice president of risk and insurance, retiring after 33 years with the company.
A resident of Brentwood, Tenn., during his career at HCA, Mr. Hinton refused to accept the suggestion that medical malpractice claims were a cost of doing business. “I don't buy that claims are going to happen,” he told Business Insurance in 2005.
Instead, he pursued an approach focusing on developing doctors' own risk management skills and enabling them to guide the company's claims prevention efforts. His successes at team-building and the effectiveness of the risk management programs he crafted led to his Risk Manager of the Year® recognition.
Mr. Hinton studied accounting and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame in 1971, adding a master's degree in the same discipline from the University of Louisville in 1978. After serving in the Air Force from 1971 to 1975 as a lieutenant, Mr. Hinton joined the Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm, then accepted a position with Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc. as assistant corporate controller in 1975.
He later served as chief financial officer, director of tax planning and vice president-risk and insurance for Humana. When the company decided to spin off its hospital operations in 1993 and focus on its health plan business, Mr. Hinton opted to remain with the spinoff, which ultimately became part of HCA, where he became the company's top risk manager and president of the company's captive, Health Care Indemnity Inc.
Mr. Hinton was an inaugural member of the advisory board for Business Insurance's Risk Management Summit in 2009-2011.
Among Mr. Hinton's survivors are his wife of 43 years, Linda Critchelow Hinton, and his sons Mike and Brian.
