Attendees to the mid-year conference of the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices, Ltd. will see a change in the meeting's format, and will notice that their fellow attendees are higher up on the leadership ladder.

The meeting will be held March 3-6 at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess in Scottsdale, Ariz.

In light of the challenges facing the excess and surplus lines industry today, NAPSLO decided to gear the conference more toward executives and to make the format more interactive so attendees can discuss the issues on their minds with NAPSLO leadership and other attendees.

Letha Heaton, secretary of NAPSLO and Mid-Year Conference chair, said E&S market participants are facing challenges similar to others in the insurance industry. She defined the market as a situation where there is a lot of capacity and many new entrants, but demand is flat or declining. Economic conditions in the nation overall have combined with good loss experience in the E&S market to create “unprecedented challenges,” Ms. Heaton said.

“CEOs and presidents have a challenging environment,” said Ms. Heaton, who is also vice president of marketing for Admiral Insurance Company, a member of the W.R. Berkley Group in Cherry Hill, N.J.

Executives need to think outside the box about the future, she added, stating that the “age-old strategy of hoping for a hard market is not a solution.”

In light of that, she said NAPSLO wanted to create a “more meaningful venue” to bring these executives together to share ideas and learn from each other.

The NAPSLO meeting will have a revamped agenda featuring two formal sessions–with both sessions designed around an interactive format, she said. The rest of the meeting, she explained, will be about providing time and opportunities for attendees to network.

As for the two sessions, Ms. Heaton said Thursday morning will feature NAPSLO's first-ever Town Hall meeting. Attendees, she said, will be able to pose questions to all members of the association's board of directors about how NAPSLO can be improved to better serve its members.

NAPSLO President Marshall Kath will open the town hall meeting with a background of the association's financial performance, but the agenda will move immediately to questions from the audience, Ms. Heaton said. She added that Thursday's meeting will not be about NAPSLO standing up and talking about what it has done. Rather, the discussion will be driven by membership.

“What do they [members] want to talk about?” Ms. Heaton said. “What do they want from their association?”

She said around 10 or 12 questions have already been presented, and 3×5 cards will be provided for attendees to write questions on anonymously if they do not want to be identified. For others, microphones will be available for them to ask their questions directly.

As for the topics, Ms. Heaton said, “Nothing's off the table.”

Based on the questions already received, she said attendees are interested in the long-term vision for association–how NAPSLO budgets and manages fiscal responsibility. Other topics of interest, she said, include what NAPSLO is doing for the industry with respect to recruiting young people and identifying technology needs.

NARAB has also been an area of interest, Ms. Heaton said, with membership interested in how NAPSLO is working with federal legislators to secure passage. NARAB is a measure that would create a National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers, with the goal of simplifying nonresident insurance agent and broker licensing. It has passed the U.S. House of Representatives three times, Ms. Heaton said, but has not made it through the Senate yet.

The second session–staying true to the theme of industry leaders sharing thoughts with other industry leaders–will feature four executives who will discuss challenges in their own organizations that have arisen due to the challenging environment. The executives will outline the issues they face and their vision for addressing those issues.

Steve Harvill, president of Creative Ventures, a provider of organizational learning and strategic planning programs for Fortune 500 companies, will moderate the panel consisting of the following leaders in the E&S space:

o Neal Abernathy, president and CEO of Swett & Crawford.

o E.G. Lassiter, chairman and CEO of RSUI Group.

o Matt Power, executive vice president of Lexington Insurance Company.

o Tony Markel, vice chairman of Markel Corporation.

Each speaker has selected his own topic to discuss, Ms. Heaton said. NAPSLO has released quotes by Mr. Abernathy and Mr. Lassiter previewing their topics.

Mr. Abernathy said, “We have employees who were in the workforce before computers and we have employees who have been playing or working with computers their entire lives. Our challenge is to stay on the cutting edge of technology without running off some of our most valuable employees.”

Mr. Lassiter said, “Being committed to the wholesale distribution system is one of RSUI's greatest strengths, and one of our biggest challenges.”

Ms. Heaton said quotes and topics from the other two speakers will be released soon.

Speaking to membership reaction to the format change, Ms. Heaton said while the organization is not sure how the changes will be received, response can be measured partly by attendance. She said NAPSLO was concerned about how many people would attend. “Are they voting with their feet?” she asked. So far, she noted, “it looks like we'll exceed attendance from last year.”

To help generate interest, Ms. Heaton said NAPSLO has advertised this meeting more than previous mid-year conferences. The advertising campaign, she said, has featured postcards, phone calls to senior-level executives, and e-mail blasts outlining the agenda and the challenges in the industry. One message, she said, is, “If you're waiting for the market to turn, you may not be around next year to talk about your strategy.”