About the American Lawyer Purchasing Group Association

The origins of the American Lawyer Purchasing Group Association trace back to the chambers of Family Law Commissioner Kraig Zappia in San Bernardino, California. At the time, Richard Zizian, JD — now a Founding Member of ALPGA — was an insurance executive attending law school, and Director of Marketing for the Avco Financial Insurance Group, who developed the nation’s first Involuntary Unemployment Insurance (IUI) product for the automotive consumer credit market. The program went on to become a mainstay in the consumer credit industry for more than forty years.

Commissioner Zappia challenged Zizian to create a similar IUI program for child and spousal support, noting that many unemployed parents before her bench “have the desire to pay, but simply did not have the ability to pay” and survive on state unemployment benefits. Then, as now, attorneys, judges, and prosecutors lack the flexibility to address legitimate unemployment, leaving both families and children struggling when support orders became unmanageable.

Mr. Zizian and a major insurance company introduced the first version of Involuntary Unemployment Insurance for Child and Spousal Support (InsuredSupport). Within six months, more than 3,400 family law attorneys and divorce services professionals clicked in and followed the concept on LinkedIn, and five states authorized continuing education credits on Mr. Zizian’s textbook, The Principles of Insuring Marital Settlement Agreements against Involuntary Unemployment. Despite early momentum, the launch ended after only six months when the insurer exited the IUI insurance market without a single claim being filed. Then COVID-19 swept the country.

ALPGA has since developed a completely new legal and insurance structure for the program with Florida RE, an A.M. Best A- rated company. Our updated model not only protects families relying on support but will also channel tens of thousands of new clients each year to ALPGA member family law attorneys and licensed divorce professionals. Under our ALPGA Contractual Liability Insurance for Marital Settlement Agreements Group Master Policy (“CLIPMSA”), at least one of the divorced or divorcing parties must be a client of an ALPGA member. CLIPMSA is not available to the public on a direct basis, as CLIPMSA is an association master insurance policy — they must be engaged with one of our ALPGA members.

We have completely restructured with lower rates and simplified underwriting so that hundreds of thousands of our members’ clients can financially stabilize their marital settlement agreements with both our unemployment and life insurance programs. Through our federal purchasing group, the National Law Purchasing Group, we now offer members a broad range of benefits detailed on this site.