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WHEATON, Ill., Jan. 6, 2005—Nationally-known
speakers will be addressing critical topics at the 2005 Annual
Conference of the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS),
April 10-12 at the L'Auberge Resort & Spa, Del Mar. Cal., near San
Diego.
Therese "Terri" Vaughan, former Iowa
insurance commissioner and past president of the National Association
of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), will join Joan Lamm-Tennant,
president of General Re Capital Consultants, in an opening day session
entitled "Insurance Deregulation: How will regulatory reform
affect competition?"
Vaughan and Lamm-Tennant, who have experience as
educators and as insurance practitioners, will explore how regulatory
reform initiatives could transform the playing field for carriers,
perhaps benefiting some and handicapping others.
Also appearing will be Paul VanderMarck, executive
vice president of Risk Management Solutions, Inc. (RMS), the firm that
pioneered catastrophe risk modeling. VanderMarck will lead off a
session entitled "Predicting the Unpredictable: Measuring and
managing catastrophe exposures."
He will be joined by Dr. Peter Höppe, head of the
geo-risk research and environmental management departments at Munich
Re, who will describe how climatology and earth science are being used
to understand and price insurance risk. Rounding out the session will
be attorney Ron Robinson, chairman of a terrorism risk subcommittee of
the Defense Research Institute, who will discuss the often-overlooked
general liability exposures that arise from acts of terrorism.
Steven Fink, author of the book Crisis
Management: Planning for the Inevitable, a seminal work in the
field of crisis management, will conclude the conference business
program with a session on "Crisis Leadership: Maintaining
operations, communications, and morale."
Among other things, Fink will analyze the
important distinction between crisis management and crisis
communication, and how to prepare to do both when confronted with a
personal scandal, a violent act, a systems breakdown, or other crisis
that can ruin a company's reputation, operations, or both.
Other conference sessions include:
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"Strategic Underwriting: Positioning for
success." This session will feature Deborah Smallwood, an
insurance automation expert formerly with Liberty Mutual and KPMG,
now with the Massachusetts-based Tower Group. She will present
findings from Tower Group's latest study on automating
underwriting and rating, and on improving interconnectivity among
business units, agents, and other distribution channels.
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"Engaging Employees: The factors that
affect performance." This session will feature Towers Perrin
consultant Jean Chiang drawing on her firm's worldwide survey of
55,000 workers to identify factors that make employees more
engaged and productive.
AAIS is a national advisory organization that
develops policy forms and rating information used by more than 600
property/casualty companies throughout the U.S.
The AAIS Annual Conference is designed for
executives and managers, and is open to professionals from throughout
the industry. Details on the conference program and social events,
plus registration forms, can be found here.
For more information on AAIS or the annual
conference, contact Joseph Harrington, director of corporate
communications, at joeh@AAISonline.com
or by calling 800/564-AAIS.
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