RIMS Redirects Conference Focus

At the recommendation of industry experts, the Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc., announced that it is expanding the scope of its annual conference to incorporate the impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The society also said it plans to expand the reach of the conference, to draw in other professionals that may be involved in the risk management process.

RIMS invited representatives from several companies and brokerages, including Marsh, Aon, FM Global, American International Group and Tillinghast, to participate in a discussion about updating the program for the next RIMS conference in light of the Sept. 11 events, Jack Hampton, executive director of New York-based RIMS, told National Underwriter.

Mr. Hampton said the executives suggested several topics for the conference, which is set to take place on April 14-18 in New Orleans.

Suggestions include “market impacts as of April 2002,” he said. The executives “expect a broad range of impacts,” he said, “including capacity and alternative risk financing. Not just business disruption, but all lines of insurance [are going] to be affected,” he said.

Jenny Emery, a principal for Tillinghast-Towers Perrin in Westogue, Conn., said she discussed her companys interest in watching how the events of 9-11 may “potentially be a catalyst for some real restructuring in the insurance industry,” drawing a parallel to “the capital crisis in the mid-80s and the boon it gave to risk financing mechanisms.”

Mr. Hampton said industry representatives foresee problems with the insurance and reinsurance markets. They “advised us to make this a conference that updates people from the normal way weve done business in the past to [include information on] the types of markets impacted and lessons learned” after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Mike McDonald, vice president of conferences for RIMS, said the organization traditionally strives to make its conference “as relevant as possible.”

“We try and maintain our flexibility in the event something does happen such as the tragedy that occurred on Sept. 11,” he said.

To keep the contents relevant, Mr. McDonald said RIMS is doing several things. One is to devote “Hot Topics,” sessions–those held until last to include up-to-date subjects–to the effects of Sept. 11 on the insurance industry.

Also, “to the degree that they can,” RIMS will ask speakers “to make their sessions more relevant to the world as it is after Sept. 11,” he said.

RIMS also plans to expand its outreach efforts to people who traditionally might not attend a RIMS conference.

“The tag line weve been using is now more than ever,” Mr. McDonald said. “You have smaller companies and some larger ones that dont have risk professionals,” but do have treasurers and certified public accountants that are often part of the risk management process, he said.

RIMS, he said, has consequently contacted the World Bank and the Department of Commerce, “who are going to promote our program through their channels, in the belief that its a global situation were dealing with.”

Mr. McDonald said the 2002 conference will be the 40th annual conference, and that the conference normally attracts about 10,000 attendees.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, November 5, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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