President Giles and President-elect Moore
see challenges as well as opportunities for association
In his A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens wrote: "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." That very simple, very understated observation about the days of the French Revolution has, unfortunately, become hackneyed today, or at least thought to be. Many have borrowed from Dickens' genius of expression in that novel to describe similarly contradictory situations much less dramatic than the French Revolution. But, perhaps "hackneyed" is really the wrong word to describe the sentence. A better word might be "universal," because it just as easily applies to any time and any place in the world's history.
Robert Giles
As the AAMGA holds its annual meeting in Florida this month, its membership is indeed experiencing the best and worst of times. On the plus side, rarely before have managing general agents experienced the sorts of opportunities they are presented with today. Last year, then incoming president of the AAMGA, Robert Giles, CIW, president of Midwest General Agency in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, said that the hardening market was a "natural and welcome consequence" of more than a decade of soft market conditions, "which just could not go on any longer."
This year, as he finishes his term as president of the association, Giles sees even more opportunities for MGAs as the market continues to harden and as more exposures, which in the not too distant past were finding homes in the standard market, come back to the surplus lines industry where they belong. Incoming AAMGA President Ronnie C. Moore, CIW, of The Southern General Agency in Bowling Green, Kentucky, agrees that there are tremendous opportunities for growth in the MGA sector of the business. But he is quick to add that, with those opportunities, come more pressure and stressful situations.
Ronnie Moore
"Every day, MGAs are seeing more and more submissions and it's getting difficult to keep up with the work," Moore says. "Add to that all the changes that are taking place in the business, such as the new terrorism act, which places greater burdens on MGAs, and stress becomes an important factor that must be dealt with every day."
But stress aside, Giles looks back over his year in office with a certain degree of satisfaction. "In the first part of the year, we worked very closely with our new management company, the Pennsylvania-based Accolade Management, Inc., which is doing a tremendous job of putting our house in order. We hired a new director of education for our University. We had more than 150 attendees at our University weekend last August, which was terrific. Also, we have recognized that our members are experiencing very busy times. They have had to hire new people or take their administrative people and teach them the basics of the business. It's difficult for them to take time to attend University classes. So, we've redesigned our education programs, putting many of them online, so that they can click on to our Web site to take courses."
Giles says that the Under Forty Organization (UFO) expanded its activities during his presidency. "At the UFO annual conference In Vancouver last September, there were 150 participants, attending two days of workshops and educational seminars," says Giles. "Last year, 20 UFOs journeyed to London as guests of Lloyd's where they learned how the marketplace operates. In addition, they were able to establish dialogues and establish good relationships with Lloyd's brokers and underwriters. Many Lloyd's representatives have traveled to the U.S. during the year to find out what working with an MGA is like. We have also begun a new communications committee to promote the association in the press, writing articles and communicating in other ways with the media about issues that directly or indirectly affect MGAs."
As he takes the helm, Moore has nothing but praise for the past year's accomplishments under Giles' tenure, and he intends to continue along the same path. He wants to emphasize as well the issues in the evolving insurance marketplace that MGAs will have to deal with over the next year. The additional pressure resulting from the hardening market is one issue. The terrorism act is another issue that MGAs have to deal with in terms of additional notification requirements.
"We think that our agenda for this annual meeting addresses all the major issues," says Moore. "There will be a special panel discussion titled 'Today's Insurance Marketplace 2002-2004: Are the Sands Still Shifting?' presented by Jeff Post, president and CEO of Fireman's Fund/Interstate Insurance Companies. The panel will include Julian James, director of worldwide markets for Lloyd's of London, and Max Williamson, president of Scottsdale Insurance Co."
In addition, there will be a session titled "Insurance Developments and Trends--Insurance Really is a Foreign Language." Moore explains: "This session will discuss current and future industry trends that are shaping our business landscape. "Topics that will be discussed include the terrorism act, mold claims privacy issues and identity theft. Gerald T. Hargrove, Insurance Litigation Counselors in Alpharetta, Georgia, will handle this session."
Other sessions will address what MGAs need to know about actuarial sciences, sales management and coaching tools, and a futuristic look at the wholesale market and an examination of various business plans to help MGAs become successful. Something of paramount importance will be a session on recognizing sound underwriting practices. "S&P says that 26 property and casualty companies went down last year," says Moore. "It was the same the year before, and there will be others in 2003. We want our members to understand how they can make certain they are dealing with stable carriers in today's hard market." *