Let’s Get to Know Each Other

I’ve seen some of you. Not many, but some. I’ve talked to many of you, on the phone and at conventions, read about others. But there are thousands of you that I will never get to meet, speak with or read about. My hope is, though, that we will get to know each other.

I’ll get to know you when I call for information on insurance coverages or to pose questions about insurance topics that I would never have imagined asking last year. I’ll meet you at conferences and try to understand you as I read and learn about the industry and its many facets, and the role of the independent agent in the broad scheme of things.

Hopefully, you’ll get to know me too, quirks and all, through these columns and through the stories that we cover. The choices that we make in trying to bring to you what you need will be the test of our value for you. As such, any and all suggestions and comments are welcome.

In this last year working with Insurance Journal Texas, I’ve learned so much so fast that it boggles my mind. But you already know so much and are more than willing to share what you know. Last year, writing about the telecommunications industry, I had no clue that this year, terms like surplus lines, E&O, admitted and non-admitted, markets and programs, and reinsurance would be seeping into my vocabulary like surf into sand. But you know and live with these terms, and so many more, every day.

One of the things that has impressed me about the insurance industry is its emphasis on education. Learning is power, of course, but it is also a source of personal enrichment-light on a darkened world. And the world we live in seems to have gone dark.

After all, who knew on Sept. 10 that the very next day terrorists would turn public transportation into weapons, bringing down the World Trade Center Towers, slamming into the Pentagon and rural Pennsylvania, killing thousands of innocent people and changing our perceptions of our personal and national safety? Who knew that the very act of opening a piece of mail would ever become cause for concern on a widespread basis?

Lacking an effective crystal ball, we can’t have known these things. But we can learn about them together.

So as the new managing editor of IJ Texas, I invite you to help me keep abreast of what’s important to you, so that we can get to know each other and the world around us a little bit better.