Dr. Damian McHugh, Curi’s Senior Director of Physician Engagement, shares his memorable and candid conversations with two pioneering physicians instrumental in the company’s founding 50 years ago.
In loving memory of Dr. Henry James Carr
Since joining Curi back in 2022, I’ve been curious about our origins. To scratch that itch and in honor of our milestone anniversary, I was recently given the privilege of speaking with doctors Henry James Carr and Edward Harvey Estes, two of the company’s founding fathers.
To start, I asked Dr. Carr what the healthcare climate was like in the 1970s. He painted a less-than-pretty picture, but one ripe with opportunity.
A Liability Emergency Hits—and Doctors Find the Solution
Dr. Carr was retired and 94 when we sat down for our first discussion, but he could still vividly remember just how needed Curi was in the mid-70s. A large medical malpractice insurer was exiting stage left in North Carolina, as well as other states. A lack of coverage was impending. It was nothing short of a professional liability crisis.
He recalled frequent evening meetings of concerned physicians, culminating in a special session of the North Carolina Medical Society (NCMS) House of Delegates.
Born in Fayetteville into a family of surgeons and physicians, Dr. Carr was raised in Roseboro at a time when malpractice was just becoming a blip on the radar. But things didn’t stay that way. He and his colleagues realized they needed to do something fast so that North Carolina doctors could safely stay in practice. Everyone in that session meeting room was a leader, he noted, ready to buckle down and work collectively to find a solution.
There was a big crowd, Dr. Carr shared; about 1,000 doctors attended. They were a committed group of “brothers in the blood” he portrayed, dedicated physicians with servants’ hearts and a community focus. And seemingly overnight our original business, Medical Mutual Insurance Company of North Carolina (MMICNC), was born.
“It gradually grew,” he said. “The longer we were in it, the more we were convinced of why we had to do it.” Most of the physicians there that day would go on to purchase a stock certificate in MMICNC. Almost every member of the Board of Directors of NCMS joined the Board of MMICNC, with Dr. Carr later serving as the fourth Chair of the Board.
Raising Funds and Boosting Spirits
Dr. Estes, an active member of NCMS at the time, was at the special session—and was present with Dr. Carr at the organizational meeting of the subscribers to the Certificate of Incorporation of MMICNC on October 3, 1975.
To his recollection, there were some heated and contentious discussions during this time of great change, with doctors feeling they were being told “you are on your own” by the departing large insurer. As they took matters into their own hands, the courageous physician group faced a steep challenge, he explained during our chat: They needed $1M in reserves to move forward. They got close, raising about $900,000.
NCMS guaranteed additional funds. Then attorney and legal advisor John Anderson handled the rest, putting together the articles of incorporation framework and dealing with the state DOI; Dr. Estes gives him the lion’s share of the credit for his deft and agile legal work.
“It was a real adventure,” Dr. Estes remembered. “Everybody was for it. They had to simply raise a lot of money or face the inability to practice.”
A Legacy of Care
After his help with MMICNC in the 1970s, Dr. Estes served as leader of NCMS and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, building a coalition of health professionals dedicated to training and placing family physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners into medically underserved communities.
He went on to become founding director of the NCMS Foundation’s Community Practitioner Program, designed to increase the number of healthcare providers in North Carolina’s underserved areas. He remained involved until 2000. He’s now retired and enjoying life with his children.
Dr. Carr also served as President of the NCMS Foundation and followed in Dr. Estes’ footsteps, helping improve access to healthcare for the uninsured. He was on the NCMS Executive Council as Chair of the North Carolina delegation to the American Medical Association, as well as founding director and former Vice President of Carolina Doctors Care, a statewide preferred provider organization created by NCMS for its members.
I was extremely saddened to hear that Dr. Carr passed not long after our last conversation. He is survived by his wife, children, sister, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews.
Your Partner in Medicine, Business, and Life for 50 More
Drs. Estes and Carr’s impressive personal and professional accomplishments remind me of so many of Curi’s current members and numerous physicians who have been part of the Curi family for 20-plus years.
Today, it remains our people who help Curi succeed and grow, including the like-minded teams we’ve joined forces with along the way to expand our coverage and services nationwide. Dr. Carr was thrilled, though not surprised, that Curi now ranks within the top six malpractice carriers in the United States. He praised company leadership, calling former CEO Dale Jenkins a man who “worked hard and knew how to connect with people” and current CEO Jason Sandner an “excellent worker and bright star.”
“I learned as much about medicine and life at Medical Mutual [now Curi] as I did in medical school and practice,” he noted. “You don’t realize how much goes on in taking care of doctors and keeping their company solvent.”
Ultimately, Dr. Carr was proud of all that transpired in the last five decades, and all the good the company has done and continues to do for its doctors and their patients and families. “Things have changed so much, but in my view, it’s getting better all the time.”
I agree wholeheartedly. Here’s to Curi’s next 50 years.
See the full timeline of our history
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