A Salute to Soldiers

Whatever one’s personal opinion about the war in Iraq—it’s justified/it’s not justified; it’s helping combat terrorism/it’s making terrorism worse; we were right to go ahead with a pre-emptive strike against a dangerous, tyrannical dictator/we were wrong to proceed without the backing of the United Nations—the reality is that many, many thousands of U.S. service men and women are honorably fulfilling their sworn duty to protect their country by serving overseas.

With the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks coming up, at least one company, MarketScout, has planned an all-out salute to soldiers who have served on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, in this strident presidential election year, MarketScout has declared the event to be politics-free. So the good news is that those in support of the war, along with those opposed to it for whatever reason—as well as those on all sides of the political fence—can take the opportunity at this celebration to honor and recognize the tremendous sacrifices our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews in the armed forces, and their families, have made in service to their country. The event takes place in Dallas Sept. 11 and 12. See page 13 of this issue for details.

Speaking of 9/11, Insurance Journal’s Southeast editor, Dave Thomas, has taken a look at the state of the insurance industry three years after the events of that fateful day. Among other things, he discovered that although the industry has made great strides in recovering financially from the attacks, it has at the same time made a concerted effort not to forget the personal impact of the tragedy. Our 9/11 retrospective includes an interview with Marsh & McLennan Chairman and CEO Jeff Greenberg, who talked about the impact of that day on his firm, which lost 295 friends and employees in the World Trade Center attacks. The 9/11 story begins on page N6 in the National section of this edition.

How do you choose the carriers you place your business with? Chances are, how easy—or how difficult—it is to do business with a particular carrier affects whether or not you bring repeat business to that insurer. At least that’s the finding of a study recently completed by management consulting firm Deep Customer Connections. The company’s founding partners, Paul Croke and Nort Salz, discuss the results of their Ease of Doing Business survey on page 34.

Last, but certainly not least (because there’s so much more in this issue of IJ), how do you know your employees are not stealing from you? You can’t unless you rigorously and consistently monitor the actions of those in your firm with whom you’ve placed authority. Agency owner AnMarie Bozick tackles the devastating and personal issue of employee theft in our “Parting Shots” column on page 42.

Until next time, happy reading!