• 

  News and Publications

  • Media Room
  • News: Federal
  • News: State
  • Publications
  • Subscriptions

• 

  Seminars and Services

  • Convention
  • Event Calendar
  • Products
  • Services

• 

  Government Affairs

  • Advocacy
  • Compliance
  • Issue Resources
  • Legislative Reports
  • Public Policy
  • Political Action

• 

  About NAMIC

  • Membership
  • History
  • Member Directory
  • Employment
  • Affiliates
  • Contact

government affairs insider

Growth Chart

David Reddick, Ph.D. | Director – Public Policy Research

During my nearly 10 years at NAMIC, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in several important association initiatives, but perhaps none has been more satisfying to me personally than NAMIC’s annual Public Policy Summit.

The idea of holding a summit where a cross section of member companies could come together “to select up to 10 subjects to receive enhanced research by NAMIC staff and retained consultants” was first conceived in 2003 by Roger Schmelzer, NAMIC’s former vice president of state and regulatory affairs.

In a November memorandum that year, Schmelzer laid out how he envisioned the summit augmenting the existing policy-setting committees, and providing “an additional layer of guidance with respect to development of the ‘top-tier’ issues that will most define NAMIC and its leadership role within the insurance industry.”

Following two days of discussions and presentations by invited guests, most attendees walked away from the first summit meeting believing that NAMIC had found a new way of looking at advocacy and public policy issues.

The next year, those attending the summit engaged in discussions similar to the first year, but ended up spending most of their time helping to draft a position statement to respond to the SMART Act legislation introduced in Congress during 2004.

By the time the 2005 summit rolled around, Bob Detlefsen, who previously had worked as a policy consultant for NAMIC, joined the organization as the head of the association’s new public policy division. He decided to tweak the summit process slightly. Instead of reviewing a list of advocacy issues or focusing on a single topic, Detlefsen thought that legal or academic experts should lead the discussions on a discrete number of issues before attendees selected a topic for a full-blown Issue Analysis research paper. That year, summit participants were focused on auto insurance reform, so Peter Kinzler, a long-time Washington consultant and recognized expert on auto insurance issues, was commissioned to write “Auto Insurance Reform Options: How to Change State Tort and No-Fault Laws to Reduce Premiums and Increase Consumer Choice.” It was released in August 2006.

Partially as a result of the timing of Kinzler’s paper, NAMIC did not convene a Public Policy Summit meeting in 2006. However, in February 2007, the summit format changed again. This time, instead of holding a stand-alone event, the summit was held in conjunction with the NAMIC Federal Affair Committee’s first meeting of the year. Most of the discussions in New Orleans that year focused on the bill that former Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi had introduced to do away with the limited anti-trust exemption allowed under the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

When it came time to select the Issue Analysis topic, there was little disagreement. Everyone agreed the paper should build a persuasive argument for defending McCarran. During the next few months, Dr. Lars Powell, a professor of insurance and risk management at the University of Arkansas – Little Rock, was identified and contracted to write the Issue Analysis. He worked closely with staff on the final draft as well as the footnotes and bibliography that accompanied it.

Most viewed the McCarran paper as a complement to the advocacy strategy that Carl Parks, NAMIC’s senior vice president of government affairs, and the D.C. staff already had begun to undertake. As a result, Dr. Powell was invited to present his paper, “The Assault on the McCarran-Ferguson Act and the Politics of Insurance in the Post-Katrina Era,” on the final day of NAMIC’s Annual Convention in Grapevine, Texas. The response among convention goers was extremely positive.

Dr. Powell’s paper became part of NAMIC’s advocacy strategy in Washington, D.C. It was mailed to members of Congress, and our members who descended on Washington last year in record numbers often referred to it in their Congressional Contact Program conversations on Capitol Hill. The Powell paper was the subject of stories and interviews that appeared in the insurance and business trade press. And it struck a chord with others as well.

For example, Dr. Powell recently received an enthusiastic reaction to the paper at a meeting of farm bureau companies in Virginia. He also just learned that the paper has been accepted in its entirety for a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Insurance Regulation, a scholarly publication of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

This year, members of the NAMIC State Affairs Committee joined their Federal Affairs counterparts and the Public Policy staff for the first time in mid-February at a venue in Pointe Vedra Beach, Florida. The federal affairs meeting also featured a two-hour discussion among members of the NAMIC Natural Disaster Task Force on whether to recommend that NAMIC lend its support to the creation of a National Catastrophe Fund. The Task Force chose not to support a change in position at this time.

The Public Policy Summit took place on the day after the state affairs and federal affairs committee meetings. Dr. Robert Klein, an insurance and risk management professor from Georgia State University, and Mark Behrens, a lawyer with the Washington, D.C., firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, led this year’s summit presentations. A third speaker, Dr. Sharon Tennyson, an economics professor from Cornell University, was unable to attend because her travel from upstate New York was disrupted by inclement weather.

When it came time to select the Issue Analysis topic, attendees were initially torn between having a paper written about natural disasters and one examining the economic consequences of “bad faith” legislation on the property/casualty industry. In the end, the latter topic was selected. NAMIC’s Detlefsen is now looking to identify an academic expert to write the paper so it can be ready in time for this year’s Annual Convention in Philadelphia.

This year, summit attendees were asked to fill out a formal evaluation form for the first time. They were asked what they liked most about the Public Policy Summit. Every respondent rated the summit as being either excellent or good. One put it this way: “It’s an excellent opportunity to put issues on the table, identify differences and create strategies to position NAMIC as an advocacy leader. It’s also a relationship building opportunity among members and NAMIC staff.”

Another attendee put it more simply: “I wouldn’t change anything.”

I agree.