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April 10-12 at the
L'Auberge Resort & Spa, Del Mar, California
No company is immune from the possibility of a
crisis that can ruin its operations or reputation, or both.
Whether it's a personal scandal, regulatory sanction, violent act, or any of a host of possible situations, your future
and that of your organization will depend on whether you
are prepared to react, and how.
 No one is better prepared to address crisis
leadership than Steven B. Fink, president of Lexicon
Communications, Los Angeles, and author of the seminal work on
the subject, Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable.
Steve earned his stripes as a member of the crisis
management team of then-Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburgh
during the 1979 incident at Three Mile Island, the nation's worst
commercial nuclear power accident. Since publishing his book in 1986,
he has
conducted training programs throughout the
world. He is frequently quoted in major newspapers and
periodicals, and featured as a crisis management commentator on
network news programs.
The property/casualty insurance industry may
be experiencing its most profound regulatory restructuring since
the McCarran-Ferguson Act was passed some 60 years ago. Proposals in Congress and the statehouses could phase out rate
filings, allow "single-point" form filing,
and strip away other regulatory requirements.
 If all that happens, it won't be the first
time a U.S. industry has undergone a process of deregulation, and
the results haven't always been pleasant or predictable. Joan
Lamm-Tennant,
president of General
Re Capital Consultants, will draw on lessons from other
industries as she assesses the potential impact of insurance
deregulation--and challenges some of the conventional wisdom.
Before joining Gen Re in 1997, Joan was a
finance professor at Villanova University; she currently lectures
at the Wharton Executive Education Institute at the University of
Pennsylvania. Among her many roles, she is a director of IVANS, and a member of the
National Bureau of Economic Research, The Brookings Institute, and
the International Insurance Society.
 Also addressing this topic will be Therese
"Terri" Vaughan, former Iowa insurance commissioner
and president of the National Association of Insurance
Commissioners (NAIC), now a professor of insurance and actuarial
science at Drake University. Her involvement with the NAIC
included work on regulatory modernization and the
convergence of financial services.
Terri was chairperson of Drake's insurance
department before becoming commissioner, and she held academic
positions at Baruch College of the City University of New York and
Temple University. She also worked as a consultant for
Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, the global actuarial firm. Terri has
her doctorate from the Wharton School, and is the co-author of two
college textbooks on insurance.
Sound underwriting is the key to long-term
success, and few organizations can provide as thorough and
up-to-date analysis of property/casualty underwriting as the Tower
Group, Needham, Mass.
 Deborah Smallwood, the Tower Group's
vice president for insurance, will present findings from the
firm's extensive research project into underwriting for both
personal and commercial lines. Before joining the Tower Group,
Deborah was a partner at KPMG, where she launched an information
technology consulting practice. Prior to that, she held a senior
information technology position with Liberty Mutual, where she
developed technology strategies for commercial lines and led
large-scale applications development for sales, underwriting,
rating and policy administration.
Insurers have experienced unprecedented
catastrophes over the past 15 years. In response, unprecedented
methods have been developed to predict, price, and manage
catastrophe losses.
 Risk Management
Solutions, Inc., Newark, Cal., pioneered the field of
catastrophe modeling. Paul VanderMarck, RMS executive vice
president for products, will be on hand to provide an assessment
of how modeling has progressed and how it is being used in
underwriting and pricing by insurers and reinsurers.
Since joining RMS in 1992, Paul has been
involved in developing models, establishing international
relationships, and supporting catastrophe risk securitizations. He
holds degrees in structural and earthquake engineering from
Stanford University.
 General liability exposures are often
overlooked in analyses of potential losses from acts of terrorism,
but Los Angeles attorney Ron Robinson will provide an
overview of the scope and potential severity of liability losses
arising from terrorist acts.
Ron, a founder partner of Berkes Crane
Robinson & Seale, is chairman of a terrorism risk subcommittee
of the Defense Research Institute's (DRI's) insurance law
committee. He has more than 25 years experience as a trial and
appellate attorney, and is a member of the Federation of Defense
and Corporate Counsel. He has chaired the DRI's insurance law and
excess and reinsurance committees, and was a co-founding editor of
its quarterly newsletter, Covered Events.
 Global reinsurers are hard at work trying to
understand climate cycles and their impact on insurance
underwriting. Munich Re, parent company of American Re, is active
in that effort, and Dr. Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re's
geo-risk research and environmental management departments, will
discuss how climate and earth science are being used to understand
and price insurance risk.
“Engaged” employees outperform those that
are less engaged, and are far more likely to remain with their
employer. Those statements aren’t just platitudes, they are
findings from a survey of more than 55,000 full-time workers done
by Towers
Perrin, the professional services firm specializing in
human resources, reinsurance, and actuarial analysis.
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