To most people, the idea of a nonprofit organization is pretty straightforward: The organization is founded, assembles an operating board and staff, makes plans to secure funding and goes about its mission – be it providing programs for children or rescuing endangered animals. Sounds simple, right?

Not so in the eyes of insurance providers. According to California-based Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group Founder, President and CEO Pamela Davis, when she started in the insurance business in the mid-1980s the industry stood with its back turned toward nonprofit organizations. Providers didn’t want to take on what they perceived to be the high risk of these organizations, with their work firmly in the public sector and the chance for, among other incidences, sexual abuse allegations to arise.

Nonprofits’ Insurance Alliance of California, which Davis founded in 1989, set out to change this perception. “We came in and said we would provide coverage specifically for 501(c)(3) nonprofits, with a separate policy for sexual abuse,” says Davis, who was named a Winning Workplaces/FORTUNE Small Business Best Boss in 2005. Originally doing business in California under state legislation that limited the company’s reach to nonprofits within the state, the company formed other entities in 2000 under federal legislation that allowed it to provide insurance to nonprofits in other states.

Today the Group includes the original company serving California; the National Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, a captive reinsurer; the Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance, Risk Retention Group; and Alliance Member Services, a supporting organization serving the other companies in the Group. Sixty employees across all four companies help insure more than 7,500 nonprofits in 20 states.

While in the 1980s the insurance industry shunned this audience, today Davis reports that her company’s membership is a prime market for some other commercial insurance companies. Although insurance is a cyclical industry with shifting capacities and appetites, many insurance companies are now pandering eagerly to this market. Yet, the Group has maintained its competitive edge by focusing on providing superior service at all stages, from policy application to handling claims and litigation.

The Group reaches its service goals by knowing its customers better than anyone else. This year employees in all departments learned the ins and outs of nonprofits at several half-day training sessions. So far three sessions have been offered, with another scheduled for later this month. Keri Petersen, a claims examiner who has been with the Group for a year and a half, enjoys the wealth of knowledge about nonprofits that she receives at each session. “We learned about their finances – where the money comes from,” she says. “We also learned about how nonprofits reach the population they’re trying to serve. The training gives me a better sense of what our members are looking for and where they are coming from when they contact us.”

Another feature of the organization that separates it from its peers in the industry is the measures it takes to solicit employee feedback. Employees operate and turn to a “Bright Ideas” committee, or BIC for short. “BIC focuses on process improvement,” says Ann Shanklin, director of loss control for the Group. “When someone’s ideas are accepted and put into use, they receive BIC Bucks, which can be redeemed for prizes like Starbucks cards.” Shanklin came up with the idea of revising the staff directory to annotate the company’s bilingual employees so that phone calls from members who speak languages other than English can be handled more quickly. Shanklin thinks that staff is motivated to participate in this process in part because they receive one BIC Buck just for submitting an idea, whether or not it is adopted.

Above-average training and a focus on continual improvement have enabled staff to make complex decisions – which, for the Group’s employees, often revolve around claim disputes. Petersen tells the story of how she interviewed every witness at the scene of an accident in which a motorcyclist hit the car of one of the Group’s insured members. In addition to proving that the motorcyclist lied about not being at fault, she advanced the insured party the entire deductible when it was discovered that the motorcyclist’s liability insurance wouldn’t cover all of the car repairs.

Davis says that claims can get even stickier when it comes to allegations of sexual abuse, or, in the case of nonprofit directors and officers, wrongful termination. “Many times our members face attorneys who think we’ll just pay to make the issue go away,” she says, “but, if we are convinced there is no liability on the part of our member-insured, we fight it.” On the other hand, she says, if it turns out one of its members is at fault, the Group doesn’t hesitate to pay out.

And what about those allegations of sexual abuse that constituted the chief barrier to nonprofit insurance coverage in the 1980s, and contributed to the Group’s founding? “Overall, we’ve seen the frequency of those allegations decline,” Davis says.

It’s trends like this that elevate Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group from a simple paper-pushing firm to a force for change in its industry. For her part, Davis hopes that nonprofits will continue to seek out suitable coverage for their boards and staff, no matter the source. “Insurance is like electricity,” she says. “Nonprofits need consistency in their coverage and it needs to be affordable.”