From the President’s Desk
I remember it so clearly. We were in Austin, Texas concluding a very successful NCOIL Annual Meeting. Everyone was looking forward to their flights home, and no one had ever heard of COVID. Outgoing NCOIL President Louisiana Senator Dan “Blade” Morrish congratulated me as I Thomas B. Considine NCOIL CEO Asm. Ken Cooley, CA Vice President officially began my service as NCOIL President.
Fast forward nearly two years, there is a new U.S. President, several COVID vaccines, schools have opened…closed…and opened…and I’m still NCOIL President – what happened?! In all seriousness, it’s been an honor to have served as NCOIL President during these unprecedented times, and I am proud to see NCOIL stronger than ever. I was able to do my job successfully thanks to my fellow NCOIL officers, other legislative colleagues, and NCOIL staff that worked tirelessly to improve NCOIL.
I would like to utilize my final column in the NCOIL Newsletter to share some observations about what we’ve accomplished in these past two years as well as what we as legislators can do in the future to further advance the organization. As we have seen first-hand, the insurance landscape is changing rapidly and an organization with the reach and stature of NCOIL is essential in helping legislators get the information they need to create impactful insurance laws and be educated on current and longstanding insurance issues.
Coming from an insurance background, I knew how important it would be for legislators to understand the complexities of the industry to effectively craft legislation. That is why I got involved in NCOIL right after I was elected to the legislature and encouraged my colleagues in Indiana and across the country to do so too. I am proud to say that both the number of legislators attending NCOIL meetings as well as the number of states represented at NCOIL meetings has increased steadily over the past several years.
The outbreak of COVID-19 cast doubt on how we would continue to meet and collaborate on insurance legislation. We were proud to continue operations as close to “normal” as possible by offering hybrid national meetings to adapt to the realities we faced. To my knowledge, NCOIL is the only organization of its kind that has continued to offer an in-person attendance option for its national meetings since the start of the pandemic – I’m very proud of that .