In April 14, 1928, representatives from eight life insurancecompanies and the Illinois Insurance Department met in Peoria,Ill., to discuss the uses of the John Hollerith's tabulatingmachine. The group toured the Peoria Life Insurance Company and hadlunch. And so began the Insurance Accounting and SystemsAssociation.

From those eight founding firms, the IASA has grown to becomethe world's largest organization of its kind, with over 1,500member companies in all lines of insurance. Yet despite the manychanges that have taken place over 83 years of growth at the IASA,one thing has stayed the same.

|

“Simply put, the IASA is focused on how to do thingsbetter,” says David Skup, controller, Guarantee InsuranceCompany, who served as IASA president the last time its conferencewas held in Nashville in 1998.

|

“We've also continued to target that objective the same way,”Skup adds. “We bring people together who deal with the same issues,problems, and systems in their daily work. They talk about how theydo things in their own shops so that others can learn fromthem.”

|

Changes and Challenges

|

Unquestionably, much has changed in the insurance industry sinceSkup served as IASA president from 1997 to 1998. Consolidationshave shrunk the number of carriers, while economic and marketconditions have constricted their budgets. Technology has become atruly transformative force, and social media has exploded on the ITscene. Insurers also contend with an increasingly globalized marketand with an ever-growing amount of regulation.

|

These developments have impacted the operations of the IASA overthe past 13 years. Consider social media. “When I was president,use of the Web by insurers was in its infancy and social media wassomething that hadn't even been envisioned,” Skup says. “Today, theIASA offers e-learning seminars and is using a wide variety ofsocial media to keep members connected and to get our message tothe marketplace.”

|

The IASA has also expanded its educational offerings over thepast decade, Skup observes. “In 1998, we essentially had twotextbooks—one for life and one for property-casualty—a quarterlymagazine, and an annual conference,” he says.

|

Today, the organization has added educational offerings for lifeand health insurance accounting, a knowledge exchange for members,and several financial reporting software solutions. The IASA hasalso partnered with RR Donnelley to provide statutory financialaccounting seminars.

|

The content of the IASA's annual conference has also evolved tokeep pace with current concerns and has expanded in scope to targetmembers of the C-suite by adding an executive education series.This includes roundtables for chief financial, investment,operations, and information technology officers. And it has addedan Executive Edge conference, separate from the annual conference,as well.

|

“Our roundtables have been immensely popular,” Skup says. “Weessentially carved topics out of the technical sessions thatattendees told us would be of interest to executives, thenpartnered with experts in the field to provide no-nonsenseinformation that people could immediately put to use.”

|

The success of this effort has been undeniable. “We've gone fromabout 15 percent of our attendance coming from the C-suite to about50 percent in the past 13 years,” Skup says.

|

Volunteer Power

|

Growth in attendance has coincided with an expansion in thescope of the conference itself, defying an industry trend whereother organizations have seen their annual conventions shrink.

|

“I attribute our growth to the enthusiasm and ability of ourvolunteers, an energized and reorganized board of directors, andextremely capable professional staff,” Skup says.

|

That reorganization included splitting the board into twogroups: one that focuses on strategic direction, and one thatfocuses on operations. Skup says that the volunteer base has alsogrown considerably over the past decade.

|

“Despite consolidation in the insurance industry, we've beenable to increase the voluntarism that powers the IASA,” he says.“We've also added more volunteers from vendors and outside partnersthat have more resources available for working with the industryand detailed domain expertise.”

|

The IASA's professional staff has increased from four to eightsince Skup was president. “Even though we are a volunteer-drivenorganization, there came a point at which the operational demandswere too much to expect volunteers to handle,” Skup says. “This isespecially true for the annual conference, where professionals whocan devote full-time resources to marketing can help propelinterest and exposure beyond what volunteers can do.”

|

Yet despite the increase in professional staff and the expansionof educational offerings, membership costs have remained relativelyunchanged over the past 13 years. “One of the things the IASA ismost proud of over all these years is that the cost of providingthe educational opportunities to our members hasn't changedsignificantly,” Skup says.

|

“We've kept our costs down by increasing volunteers, gettingadditional advertising commitments, and looking to nontraditionalareas of fundraising and revenue generation so we don't have toburden our members with hefty fee increases,” he adds.

|

In the coming years, Skup expects to see the IASA expand itseducational offerings even more into new products and new deliverymethods.

|

“We'll see the association continuing to move into new areas ofeducation. We will continue to increase our electronic offerings tomembers, using the Web, social media, and other channels to provideeducation in a convenient format and at a low cost,” he says. “Ialso expect to see the IASA continue to partner with moreorganizations where we can lend our expertise and name recognition,and they can provide resources to help us expand the scope of whatwe offer,” Skup adds.

|

But no matter what tactical changes come, the strategic focus ofthe IASA will remain unchanged. “We will always remember why wewere founded and why we exist today,” Skup says. “We are here toprovide a forum for insurance professionals to discover how to dothings better, to learn from each other and, ultimately, to putthat education to use in our own careers.”