Spring Meeting Set for Marco Island

by Martin T. King

Enjoy the perfect prelude to your summer activities on the white sand beach of beautiful Marco Island, FL. The 2003 CAS Spring Meeting will be hosted by the Marriott Marco Island Resort Golf Club & Spa. Be sure to keep your swimsuit handy and mark your calendars for the dates: May 18-21. (Beach enthusiasts be warned: the next tropical CAS meeting is not until 2006.)

Our featured speaker will be D. Michael Abrashoff, former commander of a $1 billion warship and author of the best seller It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy. By shifting the focus of his ship's culture from obedience to performance, he transformed a crew that had been plagued by low morale and high turnover. His challenges and successes will help motivate the audience to take calculated risks and rethink the way they lead and manage.

Four general sessions will provide attendees with an array of insurance business issues that affect the actuary. A "CAS Town Hall Meeting" will facilitate a discussion of how consumer advocates and regulators view the current hard market. Dual general sessions will cover the "Use of Credit Scoring" and "Government Involvement and Uninsurable Exposures." The credit scoring session will emphasize personal automobile underwriting. The session on uninsurable exposures will explore the extent to which the state and federal government could get involved with the insurability of extreme or company-crippling exposures. Finally, historical and prospective views of profitability will be discussed in "How Can the Insurance Industry Make Money?"

Concurrent sessions being planned include: Florida homeowners issues, data standards, workers compensation issues, an actuary's responsibility to the public, the effectiveness of exclusive remedies, and much more.

A Tuesday night bash at the hotel will follow the customary Tuesday afternoon golf outing. For those who are not golf enthusiasts, something new is being offered on Tuesday afternoon—attendees and their guests will be given an opportunity to ride aboard a catamaran and enjoy a sightseeing and shelling excursion.

Additional information and registration materials will be mailed to members and made available online.

Don't let your snow activities distract you from marking your calendars for our Spring Meeting. Before you know it, you will be sunbathing on the Florida coast!