Michelle Duffett, co-owner of Insight Insurance Services Inc. of Geneva, Ill., will become the first female president of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) at the organization’s 14th Annual PLUS International Conference in Chicago Nov. 14-16. The outgoing president is Peter W. Wilson of CNA Global Specialty Underwriting in Monmouth, N.J.
As president, Duffett plans to continue working on goals the organization already has in place. “We have a couple of really great things in motion…my goal is to keep steering the organization in the direction it is already going,” Duffett said.
Among the initiatives the group has underway is a revamping of its website. Duffett said planned changes include: the development of a databank of policy forms and applications; the inclusion of better information on types of coverages available; improving and expanding the library section; increased delivery of information and content to PLUS members; and provision of information to professionals seeking liability insurance and links to the offerings of PLUS members.
Duffett said another of the organization’s goals is to improve its RPLU certification program, which is a five-exam series. The new computer-based testing through Prometric for our RPLU program have already been implemented and are available at Prometrics testing centers all over the country. This change makes the tests available at a greater frequency—previously they were available only about every six months. The new testing procedures slso provide for more immediate access to test scores.
“We are also looking to change the content of the RPLU educational program, to move content toward the actual thought processes behind underwriting,” Duffett said. Currently the program contains a great deal of technical information but doesn’t address the underwriting thought processes as completely, she noted.
“We are looking at a couple of interesting years in the insurance business,” said Duffett, adding that the changes in the market over the past year and the Sept. 11 attacks have deeply affected the industry. Duffett said that PLUS, with its emphasis on education, can be at the center of the process of working through the challenges ahead.
As such the 2001 PLUS Conference is appropriately entitled “The Challenge: Achieving Success.” The conference has been organized to focus on the changes the professional liability industry is currently experiencing and on helping participants reach both immediate and long-term goals while facing new challenges and intense competition.
The agenda covers many of the current and emerging topics in professional liability. Registrants will be able to receive credit for attending one, two or three parts of the educational agenda. Topics on that agenda include international D&O liability; medical professional liability; EPL exposures, insurance challenges of the construction marketplace; and fiduciary liability.
The keynote address at the opening session on Nov. 14 will be given by Dr. Cheryl L. Shavers, former Undersecretary of Commerce and Technology in the Clinton Administration. Shavers is a 25-year veteran of the high-tech industry who, as senior advisor to the Secretary of Commerce in forming new policies and program initiatives in science and technology, was charged with working in partnership with domestic and international industries to improve America’s commercial and industrial innovation, productivity and economic growth.
Shavers is an authority on the complex issues involving the globalization of technology and has many proactive views on the inter-relationship of business, technology and policy issues in regions such as the Middle East, Africa, Israel, China, Canada and Europe. She is also a frequently invited participant in high-level U.S.-South Africa, U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Japan science and technology forums
Also featured at the opening session will be George F. Will, syndicated columnist and Newsweek contributing editor. Will’s newspaper column has been syndicated by The Washington Post since 1974, and it now appears twice weekly in nearly 500 newspapers in the U.S. and Europe. He has been a regular contributing editor of Newsweek since 1976, and in 1977, Will won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in his newspaper columns.
Will has also authored a number of books, among them three on political theory, “Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does” (1983), “The New Season: A Spectator’s Guide to the 1988 Election” (1987) and “Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and The Recovery of Deliberative Democracy” (1992). In 1990, his book “Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball,” topped The New York Times bestseller list for two months.
Thursday’s luncheon will feature Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Gingrich is now the CEO of The Gingrich Group, an Atlanta-based communications and management-consulting firm and serves as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Rising Prices, Low Satisfaction Drive 49% of Customers to Shop For New Auto Insurance 
South Carolina Ringleader Sentenced to 8 Years for Staged Accidents 
Fla. Regulators’ Effort to Remove Insurer Execs May Not Pass Constitutional Muster 
Hartford Q1 Income Up 41% on Commercial Lines as Auto Results Improve From This Issue
