Jim Touse
Executive Team
General Counsel, Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary
Jim Touse is an accomplished attorney who has served as the General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer of various organizations for a majority of his 30 plus year legal career. Touse has excelled in each of his positions as a result of his professional expertise, leadership skills, commitment to providing high quality professional services to clients, understanding of the business challenges confronting those clients and ability to work effectively with others.
Touse currently serves as the General Counsel, Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary of Life & Specialty Ventures, L.L.C. and its affiliated companies, including USAble Life and the Florida Combined Life Insurance Company (collectively “LSV”). LSV’s affiliates are licensed in 48 states and the District of Columbia, will write nearly $400 million in premium revenue in 2009, with 600 employees, and offer group and individual life, disability, dental and worksite products to more than 1.4 million covered individuals. Touse is primarily responsible for providing necessary legal, risk management, compliance and corporate governance services to LSV’s Board, senior executives and management staff. His accomplishments include: completing numerous acquisition, reinsurance and sale transactions; implementing model legal forms, policies and procedures; refining LSV’s corporate governance structure; developing an effective risk management program; and establishing the Company’s compliance department to ensure that it operates in accordance with its legal and ethical obligations.
Touse has developed his unique professional expertise and skills during his diverse professional career. He has had the opportunity to devise innovative strategies to address challenging issues, capitalize on legal or regulatory opportunities and create new businesses or business units. This experience includes: creating an alternative dispute resolution company prior to joining LSV; establishing and building the legal department of BlueCross and BlueShield of Tennessee (BCBST); helping to form a joint venture between BCBST and Cigna to pursue Medicare administrative opportunities; representing an over 100 member physician group, while serving as the General Counsel of Group Health Plan; providing legal support for all Aetna health operations from Colorado to California; supervising attorneys and staff in four regional offices as both the Assistant General Counsel of Equicor and Senior Associate General Counsel of Partners National Health Plans; creating the legal department of Health Power, a pioneering managed Medicaid health plan; developing the Capital District Physicians Health Plan from concept to start-up operations; and being selected as the Assistant Director and General Counsel of the Ohio Department of Insurance at the age of 27, which included the responsibility of regulating Ohio HMOs and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans.
Touse’s peers have recognized his contributions to the legal profession by electing him to leadership positions in the American Health Lawyers Association, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association Legal Department Cooperative, American Association of Health Plans (now named America’s Health Insurance Plans), and the Tennessee Bar Association Health Law Section. He has also made numerous presentations and authored publications addressing significant legal and regulatory issues affecting the employee benefits industry.