IBA West Prepares for Blue Ribbon Conference in Hawaii

Attendees at the upcoming Insurance Brokers and Agents of the West Blue Ribbon Conference, to be held May 1-5, can expect more than sunbathing, snorkeling and golfing at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel on the big island of Hawaii. Agents and brokers will be able to hear about hot industry topics, obtain continuing education credits, access carriers and important industry decision makers, and will be able to take advantage of networking and business opportunities.

One of the major topics that agents and brokers will learn about at the conference is workers’ compensation.

“We’re going to hear pretty much first hand what’s occurring and what the pros and cons are of the current reform,” said Bill Bolton, chairman of the IBA West Blue Ribbon Conference and director at Pasadena, Calif.-based Bolton & Company.

The other major topic is broker compensation and contingent commissions. The issue will be discussed in a panel discussion titled “Broker Compensation Practices: A Crisis in Confidence: the Fallout.” Panelists include John E. Washburn, senior vice president of AON Corporation; Charles Landgraf, partner at Washington, D.C.-based LeBouef, Lamb, Greene & MacRae; Stanley D. Loar, CEO of San Francisco-based Woodruff-Sawyer; and Steve Young, senior vice president of IBA West.

“We’re going to go through in detail a lot of the legal issues, about the legal situation of accepting or not accepting contingent commissions,” Bolton said. “It will be a how-to guide as to what we need to do as an agent or broker.”

The other panel discussion at the conference, titled “Alternative Risk Transfer,” will feature Robert Curtis, senior vice president of Zurich Corporate Solutions and Esther Becker, assistant vice president of structural underwriting at AIG.

Bolton said that there will be two presentations by the Insurance Skills Center that are approved for CE credits, one on workers’ comp and the other on common errors that producers make. He added that IBA West is seeking CE credit approval for several speakers at the conference. General sessions will include a presentation by Fireman’s Fund and a report on insurance legislative activity by John Norwood, partner at Norwood & Mattoch Governmental Relations and lobbyist for IBA West.

Bolton emphasized that much of the education at the Blue Ribbon Conference takes place outside of the presentations. He said that the conference allows agents and brokers to access most major insurance carriers on the West Coast such as Chubb, Hartford, CNA, and Zenith.

“Probably the most beneficial activity is what’s done outside the hall,” Bolton said. “Each insurance company has small groups for dinner for their agents and they have small groups for golf. You will deal with senior company officials on the West Coast. On a one-on-one basis you’re getting to be very close to those people who are making the major decisions that affect your office. You can discuss a lot of issues and have a lot of your issues resolved right there on the spot.”

Other benefits of attending the conference include networking and business opportunities. Bolton said that these opportunities are often the most valuable aspects of attending any conference.

“Really what you learn in the hall is one thing but what relationships you develop outside of the speaker’s hall is probably the most important and critical part of a meeting,” he said. “Insurance agents are pretty free and forthcoming about how things are done and what mistakes they’ve made along the way. We can bounce ideas and concepts off of each other and talk about how to do things better and handle problems we have in our offices. It’s nice to have your peers help you.”

Bolton stressed the importance of developing friendships with agents and brokers in other geographical areas. “Agents generally cannot operate in a vacuum,” he said. “They need to see what’s going on and what the newest and latest and most modern ways to do things are. They need to hear about the newest and latest ideas.”

He said that he knows of several agencies that have merged or gone into clusters because principals met at the conference. Bolton encouraged agents to come back every year for the conference, especially to take advantage of business and networking opportunities.

“Most people go to this conference year in and year out. It’s a very comfortable setting; it’s very casual,” he said. “But it’s one of the most important meetings that our office has attended for years. We get more out of this meeting than probably any other one.”