Big ‘I’ President & CEO Letter to Partners on Legal System Abuse
To Our Valued Company Partners:
I wanted to share some recent updates from the Big “I” and amplify the great work that is being done here on a very important topic to all of us: abuse of our legal system.
The Big “I” has been firing on all cylinders with a number of industry coalitions and stakeholders to address this issue and its devastating impact on carriers, agents, and policyholders. Over the last few months, abuse of our legal system has been a major focus for our government affairs team on Capitol Hill, our Future One partners at our September meeting in Nashville, our Trusted Choice board and staff, many Big “I” state associations, and me personally, at the CEO level, as I continue to collaborate with other executives on the need for reforms.
The Big “I” is creating resources on this issue because we believe independent agents can play an important role in educating customers about the profound, negative impact that legal system abuse has on our marketplace. Through Trusted Choice, we’ve made available a Legal System Abuse Toolkit which provides social media content, videos and talking points to use in agent-client conversations. As part of the toolkit, we have produced this video explaining third-party litigation financing. Also take a moment to watch this new video of independent agents sharing their individual perspectives on legal system abuse and our new Insurance Explained video on the topic. Feel free to use any of these new assets in your own efforts to combat legal system abuse as well.
I am pleased to say we have seen progress in several states on legal reforms—most notably in Georgia and Florida. We’re hopeful that by working together, we can carry the momentum forward from the reforms enacted in Georgia earlier this year, and several years ago by Florida, as well as efforts in a handful of other states. Since no two states are identical in dealing with this complex problem and each state requires its own unique advocacy plan to achieve results, I firmly believe that the Big “I” confederation is well-positioned to lead those unique state campaigns. So we are doing just that.
Another way to move the needle on important issues like legal system abuse is getting more insurance professionals elected to public office. And that is why we recently announced the formation of an Insurance Campaign Institute to arm those from our industry with the knowledge and tools to run successful campaigns for public office. The opportunity to participate will be open to anyone with p&c insurance industry ties who is interested in running for election—local, state or federal.
The initial Institute will be held next year in Washington, DC on April 20-21, just before the Big “I” Legislative Conference. It is our chance to create a pipeline of insurance professionals serving as legislators and to promote sound public policy, such as combating abuse of our legal system. Our team will provide additional details on the Campaign Institute in the weeks ahead. We hope to have your partnership on this very important initiative for our industry.
Thank you for your help in tackling this important issue for the IA system and the p&c market. By working together, we will succeed in bringing an end to the rampant abuse that is harming our industry and its customers.
Charles Symington
Big “I” President & CEO