News from AIDA - Council focuses on going to Rio

The first Presidential Council Meeting for 2017 was in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on 2 May, as a lead up to the XIV CILA Congress on 3-5 May.

At the meeting, due to General Secretary Prof Samim Unan's heavy workload, Andrea Signorino, president of AIDA's Uruguayan Chapter, was appointed an additional assistant to the General Secretary.

With the October 10-13 2018 AIDA XV World Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,  approaching, significant attention was focused on the congress and, in particular, questionnaires that will be relayed to the chapters for input on congress themes.

So far, three questionnaires have been produced for the themes:

• Disclosure duties in insurance
• Pollution insurance – methods, coverage and beneficiaries
• Corporate governance of insurers.

The congress is at the Royal Tulip Hotel, by the beach of Sao Conrado, in the south zone of Rio. The scientific program is in progress and the social program will include a closing dinner at the Royal Tulip and a dinner on Ilha Fiscal island in Guanabara Bay.

The Santa Cruz meeting included discussion on new AIDA chapters. Iran was added at Helsinki in 2016 and the Austrian Chapter was resuscitated and hosted the European Conference in November 2016. Attempts are being made to add Canada, Vietnam, Malta and Luxemburg.

The USA Chapter is very much dictated by support generated by the Federation of Defence and Corporate Counsel (FDCC) and the efforts of US FDCC member Richard Traub. Morocco has been revived and hosted an international conference in Casablanca in December 2016.

The insurance section of the Association of European Business has effectively become the AIDA chapter in Russia.

Work progresses in developing a new AIDA website and it is hoped to be fully functional in 2H CY2017.

With the next Presidential Council meeting in Singapore on 17 October, discussion involved AIDA support for the Asia Pacific Insurance Conference (APIC). BILA and the European bodies will actively promote the event and, following my presentation at the CILA Congress, it was encouraging to receive substantial interest from CILA members who expressed a desire to attend APIC.

CILA Presidential Council members and several other CILA members have agreed to promote Singapore.

The final item of interest was Young AIDA. A report was tabled outlining initiatives in various chapters, in particular Australia, where we have been successfully promoting the Ron Shorter Memorial Public Speaking Awards and collaborative ventures with Young Insurance Professionals.

With less than six months to APIC in Singapore, I encourage all members in Australia and New Zealand to pencil the dates in their diaries (18-20 October).

As AILA will not host the annual conference in Perth this year, let's all get behind APIC 2017. I look forward to seeing many of you in Singapore for what will be an exceptional event.