NAIC Dismisses Its Meeting Staff
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners may outsource the job of arranging its meetings after dumping the staff that had been doing the planning for alleged "unethical" acceptance of "incentives" from vendors.
Andy Beal, general counsel for the organization, based in Kansas City, Mo., said the NAIC is considering outsourcing the meeting function and rebuilding the department.
Two employees have resigned and the remaining four were terminated, said Mr. Beal. Former staffers could not be reached for comment.
NAIC President and South Carolina Insurance Director Ernst Csiszar said members of the meeting department took action "that we considered to be unethical conduct," adding, "that wont be tolerated."
Mr. Beal said that although its staff has been dumped, the department still exists and "we dont think that it will be disruptive to the national meetings, interim meetings or the educational seminars."
He said the NAIC dropped all the staff after an internal review of the department discovered "a violation of the NAIC conflict-of-interest policy." The probe, Mr. Beal said, had commenced four to six weeks ago. The review found that staff had "inappropriately accepted incentives from outside vendors," he noted.
The review centered on meeting planner points, he said. The NAIC has a policy restricting such activity, he added. Points generally are redeemable for free hotel stays or room upgrades.
When asked if all the six former staffers had accepted these points, Mr. Beal responded, "most of them were and there were problems in other areas."
Jim Connolly is a senior editor with NUs Life & Health edition.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, February 6, 2004. Copyright 2004 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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