Volunteering and the Verrazano Bridge

One of the first things I learned when I was in the army was never volunteer for anything—and that philosophy worked well for me in the service. But, I found this is not the case with regard to my career as an independent agent. Volunteering in my community opened up opportunities for me—it built my credibility, network and prospect lists, and I truly believe in giving back to society. After enjoying some success in my field, I was able to devote more time volunteering in our industry with PIA. I joined the PIA of New York board in 1998, and participated in my first convention with the association, which was held in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. It was a good convention, but it needed energizing, and at my first board meeting, I told PIA what I thought.

Just like those in the military, the next thing I knew, I was chair of the PIANY Convention Committee. That year, we moved our event to a resort in the Catskills. The next year, we took our change even further. We knew our sister affiliate in New Jersey always hosted a great conference in Atlantic City, so the two PIA organizations got together and the result was phenomenal— in fact, after 10 years in Atlantic City, the PIANJ/PIANY Joint Annual Conference is the largest agents’ convention in the Northeast. For the last several years, the event has been held at the Trump Taj Mahal. It’s amazing to see the enormity of this landmark event—a record of more than 200 exhibitors in the trade show, and more than 2,000 people from both states (and even some bordering states) attended this year. The contacts I made with many of the vendors I spoke to certainly will help my office in the future. I have to give credit to both the PIA agent volunteers and staff for putting together this must-see event. One of the best parts of the entire program was that I met all of my continuing education credit requirements, included with my price of admission. I know plans are underway for the same location next year and I recommend all industry pros mark their calendars for that Sunday through Tuesday, June 10- 12, 2012!

For me, one of the highlights of the lavish Monday night banquet was when Ellen Kiehl, Ph.D., PIA senior analyst was awarded the Distinguished Service award by the three PIA boards of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Sadly, Ellen will be retiring at the end of the year after 35 years of service to PIA, our members and the entire industry. She’ll be missed a great deal! Those of us who know and who have worked with Ellen know how intelligent she is, and how she can take a complicated situation and simplify it for a lawmaker, regulator or agent. There are many industry professionals who owe Ellen enormously for helping them in their careers, including myself.

Of course, when I returned from the convention there was buzz in Albany about the passage of a new commercial-lines deregulation law, (S.5811/A.8464), which PIANY has always opposed. Numerous agents deserve credit for taking the time to contact their representatives in the legislature to oppose the bill, arguing that the $25,000 threshold is too low without adequate additional protections for policyholders and that deregulation of policy forms should be restricted to sophisticated policyholders who can evaluate fully the potential consequences of accepting such policy terms.

The bill will deregulate commercial insurance rates and forms for policies if the risk pays more than $25,000 in annual aggregate commercial p/c premiums. PIA is not opposed to the deregulation or rates, for these types of policies, but we are concerned with the deregulation of forms for anything but truly sophisticated risks, because it means insurance producers and some of their clients would be exposed to insurance contracts that have not been vetted by the New York State Insurance Department. In a nutshell, this bill does not provide adequate safeguards. Unfortunately, despite all of our work and PIA’s consistent, but lone opposition, the bill had support from other organizations and it passed. I do not understand why any industry organization would support this. A friend told me that one of the reasons this law received support from some industry organizations is that they believe a similar bill has been in place for several years in New Jersey, without difficulty. I have two answers: First, this is a very different piece of legislation that affords fewer protections to the insured. And second, if my friend jumps off the Verrazano Bridge into New Jersey, do I have to follow him?

The discrepancy in opinion among the trade organizations in this case reinforces my own belief that agents of this state are well served by having more than one voice in the legislative and regulatory arenas, just as the two-pronged approach worked well in the fight against disclosure regulation. Further, natural competition affords important checks and balances against group-think. After all, independent agents are all about choice—whatever choice we make, I’m glad we have the option to chose among more than one organization to represent our interests.