Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section

EXCESS, SURPLUS LINES AND REINSURANCE
(ESLR)
Committee News

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Fall 2000

VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

By: Michael A. Knoerzer, Excess, Surplus Lines & Reinsurance Committee

Welcome to the New Millennium Edition of the ESLR Committee! ESLR boasts over 1000 members in almost all fifty states and across a dozen countries. While most of us are lawyers in private practice, our Committee presently has over 100 members working at insurers and reinsurers. Much of the credit for this vibrant membership goes to our past Chairs, including our most recent outgoing Chair, Wes Sunu. Wes has been a great leader of ESLR and I look forward to continuing to rely upon his guidance and assistance (you're not free of us yet, Wes).

Yet despite our past success, times change and so must your Committee. Gone are the days when we can simply print a few newsletters, put up a few programs and call it a year. There is too much competition for our members' valuable time for the Committee to simply fall back on that model and still expect to grow. Instead, we must together develop new plans.

Have you ever noticed how the Committee name covers three disciplines (excess, surplus lines, and reinsurance, for those of you not fluent with anagrams), but so much of our effort focuses on reinsurance? While reinsurance is an important area which we must continue to emphasize (I myself practice in the area), we must broaden ESLR's focus to better cover excess and surplus lines issues, each of which are vibrant disciplines which can and do generate a lot of interest (and fees). To that end, we are endeavoring to establish working relationships with excess and surplus lines organizations and to supplement our budding relationship with ARIAS?U.S., the US insurance and reinsurance arbitration society, with whom we have conducted joint meetings over the last two years. Next, a nod to my partner, Larry Schiffer, who so ably serves as ESLR's webmaster and chief technocrat. E-Commerce. I think it's going to be big. As our clients move to web-based business models, so must ESLR. Ideally, not only will our newsletters be delivered to members on the web, but our ESLR thread would be a dynamic area where our members (and possibly the members of our partner industry organizations) can exchange ideas and deliver information. There are obstacles to this, both technological and procedural. Our efforts this year will be to overcome the obstacles. Chair-elect Linda Lasley and I, together with the Vice-Chairs, will be working hard to accomplish these goals. Deborah Prawiec, as our Newsletter Editor, has undertaken a daunting responsibility assuming the responsibility from outgoing editor David Anderson, who did a great job. In a break from tradition, I will not ask for you to contact us to volunteer your help, although we would welcome those calls. Instead, we intend to call you. You'll be hearing from us!


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