Gotta Love Her!

Pamela J. Newman graced our cover last issue as Insurance Advocate’s 2015 Insurance Professional of the Year and proceeded to grace the victory party as well with her selfless, elegant manner – thanking her staff and according responsibility for her success to them generously. The Newman Team at Aon has a service formula worth imitating – and they are not bashful about sharing it.

Speaking of sharing, Ellen Melchionni, President of the NYIA, is one Association Executive who understands the value of volunteers. The NYIA ad in this issue—see page 25—bespeaks her appreciation of those colleagues who are themselves corporate leaders but who manage to give of their time to the NYIA and, as a consequence, to the industry’s betterment itself.

Our cover story is sharp and should be, given the overwhelming sense of anxiety felt in the industry over the seeming interest in creating a kind of prosecutorial role where a regulatory one should be. At stake: the desirability of the New York market. We recognize that sainthood does seem the goal of many insurance leaders’ decisions and virtue does not always characterize the intentions of those who regulate, but there needs to be a happy medium lest the State seem like Franz Kafka is writing the narrative. Our industry does so much good that steady, balanced regulation seems warranted, not the prosecutorial approaches that have characterized the approach to bankers – whose “sky’s the limit” penalties many believe served as a “bank” for the State’s budget. That’s not right, in my view. You agree? sa@cinn.com.[IA]