Friday, July 29, 2005

NAPSLO Visits Capitol Hill

NAPSLO Executive Director Richard Bouhan and Maria Berthoud, Vice President of B&D Sagamore, NAPSLO's new lobbying representative, were on Capitol Hill in late July to meet with a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Bouhan and Ms. Berthoud met with Rep. Dennis Moore (D-KS) to discuss several issues and also interviewed Rep. Moore for a section of a new legislative video to be shown at the Legislative Breakfast at the NAPSLO Annual Convention in September.

The House Financial Services Committee will be reviewing the State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act (SMART Act) this year. In discussions with legislators, NAPSLO has outlined its preference for national standards, which would be implemented by the states, as opposed to federal regulation.

The Senate is considering a separate bill and B&D Sagamore provided a background paper on the proposed National Insurance Act (NIA), which contains the framework for an Optional Federal Charter, which would allow an insurer to write insurance in all 50 states without the burden of satisfying each state's licensing requirements, rate and form regulations, and other standards.

Copies of the background paper and a summary of the Act are available for download from the NAPSLO website.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Nearly 350 Signed up for Legislative Breakfast

Nearly 350 registered attendees of the NAPSLO Annual Convention have signed up for the special Legislative Breakfast on Saturday, September 17 from 8:30 -10:00 a.m. Overall nearly 2,800 people have registered for the convention, set for September 14-18 at the San Francisco Marriott.

Current legislative issues will be reviewed by NAPSLO's new lobbying representative during thel Legislative Breakfast. Maria L. Berthoud, Vice President of B&D Sagamore, which was recently hired by NAPSLO to assist with legislative matters in Washington, will review current legislative activities and NAPSLO's role in the upcoming action regarding the debate over federal standards or federal charters.

Convention attendees need to mark on their registration form that they will attend the breakfast. If convention attendees have already sent their registration forms but did not check that they would attend the breakfast, they can notify Vicky Fleming at vicky@napslo.org that they wish to attend the legislative breakfast.

Friday, July 01, 2005

80 attend E&S School

A record 80 students completed the recent NAPSLO E&S School, which took place at the Eric P. Newman Education Center in St. Louis.

The E&S School, designed for people with less than five years experience in the E&S industry, was expanded this year to meet the increased demand but the school still sold out early and more than 20 people were on the waiting list.

Registration materials for NAPSLO's Advanced School, set for November 5-8 in the Dallas area, will be mailed in August. The school will be held at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas. The Advanced School is designed for people with more than five years experience.