I would like to be able to report to you today what Al Gore told a group of risk managers at this morning's client breakfast hosted by Marsh here in New Orleans during the Risk and Insurance Management Society's annual conference. Unfortunately, the former vice president and current global warming crusader declared press coverage off limits, and Marsh allowed Mr. Gore to get away with it. I can think of only one reason why a potential presidential candidate would insist on a press ban–he is ashamed to be associated with the insurance industry in general, and a firm that has been accused of bid-rigging in particular.

I've never seen a politician who didn't want press coverage unless he was afraid that public exposure would do him more harm than good. Although Marsh gave no formal reason for Mr. Gore's insistence that no press be allowed to report on his keynote address, I can only imagine that he is still keeping open the slim possibility of running for president, and doesn't want to be seen taking big bucks from an organization that had been hounded by New York's former attorney general (now governor), Eliot Spitzer.

Marsh's new management team has worked hard to put its regulatory and legal problems behind them, having settled allegations of bid-rigging and account-steering, while giving up the lucrative, volume-based contingency fees that supposedly motivated such scandalous behavior.