Bearing Fruit

The RIMS Canada Conference in Calgary set an attendance record in September 2006, registering 699 delegates.

RIMS Canada attributes the success to the early achievement of RIMS Canada Council’s (RCC)’s new strategic plan, formed at the council’s most recent strategic planning meeting.

In March 2006, the RCC held a planning meeting in which the objective was to envision what risk management would look like in 10 years. RCC vice chair Kim Hunton says the council considered what short- and long-term goals were necessary to help the RCC reach that vision.

As a result of the strategic planning process, the RCC developed four specific themes representing its goals. They include:

* Increasing the number of professional development educational offerings, programs and services for the benefit of members.

* Promoting the awareness of RIMS in Canada and the value of RIMS membership. This will be done by means of technology breakthroughs, as well as programs and services the council offers.

* Continuing to work with Canadian chapters to deliver the RIMS Conference in Canada.

* Promoting the discipline of risk management, as well as the importance of risk managers to the organizations for which they work. This includes building both university and government relations activities.

The RCC established one-, three- and 10-year deadlines to achieve each specific step incrementally. One three-year initiative, for example, deals with the evolution of education related to Canada’s risk management industry, according to chair of the national education committee Jim Swanson.

EDUCATION IDEAL

Assisting in the French translation of the arm texts, which are used for Canadian Risk Management (CRM) training, is something the RCC will emphasize in its new educational stratagem, according to Swanson.

“The former funder for that program (the revision of the arm texts) dropped out, so the University of Qubec was looking for a new partner to help convert these texts to French,” Swanson said. “Between ourselves (the RCC) and the local Qubec Chapter, we are funding the program with CD$75,000 over the next three years.”

The funds will be paid to the University in three annual installments. The RCC will pay three annual installments of CD$20,000, while the Qubec Chapter will pay three annual installments of CD$5,000.

In addition to promoting multilingual access to the arms texts, Swanson said the RCC is planning to improve the CRM arm courses. “We’d like to see an ERM (enterprise risk management) component added,” he said. “We want to bolster the CRM in general and make it more than a three-course designation – maybe [have it] evolve to four or five [courses] over the next couple of years.”

If all goes according to the RCC’s new education plan, a risk management degree will be available in at least three more Canadian universities, in addition to the existing risk management program already available at the University of Calgary. Over the next few years, Swanson said, the education committee will be looking for opportunities to bring risk management into commerce, business administration or engineering degrees within at least three additional universities. Swanson also plans to endorse the development of a Master’s degree in risk management.

PROMOTIONAL PLAN

If you promote it, they will come. This is the theory behind a major advertising campaign on which the RCC has been working for about a year, according to the chair of the communications and external affairs committee Lance Kayfish.

The campaign’s main focus is to heavily promote both the Canadian Risk Management (CRM) and the RIMS Fellow (RF) designations to new target audiences. Specifically, Kayfish said the RCC plans to target accountants, because “more and more accountants are coming into the risk management field and taking an interest.”

“We are going to run a series of advertisements in the Chartered Accountant, the Certified Management Accountant and the Certified General Accountant magazines in 2007,” Kayfish said. “We may even launch a couple of ads in 2006, but that is yet to be determined.”

To further promote the association, Kayfish said the council would update the RCC’s Web site in 2007. “We want to make it more useable and provide more options,” he explained. “The Web site will have five different themes from which the RIMS chapters can choose; within those themes, there will be five colour schemes, so the Web site will offer 25 options.”

Kayfish said the council will also be participating with both the B.C. and Alberta provincial governments in reviewing their respective insurance acts. “Both provinces are looking to do a substantial update of their insurance acts and they are looking for input from stakeholders,” he said.

One of the main issues to be discussed is “fire following.” Provincial insurance industries are interested in removing “fire following” as a statutory requirement in insurance policies, according to Kayfish. The RCC intends to survey its membership to determine what Canadian risk managers feel would be the impact of making such a statutory change.

CONFERENCE CONSISTENCY

Consistency is key in the RCC’s strategic plan, especially when it relates to organizing the annual RIMS Canada Conference.

Mike Maida, chair of the national conference committee, said his committee is developing a national programming model for future conferences.

“Over the next year, we will be assessing different alternatives and presenting a recommendation to bring forth a model that answers the programming challenges of the future,” Maida said.

In addition, the conference committee plans to spend the next year creating a conference sponsorship model. The new modeling is expected to increase future attendance at the Conference.

“Right now it’s a bit disjointed,” Maida said. “There isn’t consistency because, for example, one company sponsors a breakfast or a lunch or a coffee.”

Part of the purpose behind the new modeling, is the RCC’s goal is to “look to different, non-traditional markets to try to grow the conference.”

Such markets include accountants, auditors, lawyers and engineers.

“We’ve also been tasked to revise the conference delivery mode,” Maida said.

“We’re trying to streamline things, so we are establishing standards that we can meet consistently.”

POWER OF CHANGE

One issue that has been “plaguing” the risk management industry for a long time, and is in dire need of change, is contract certainty, according to RIMS president Michael Liebowitz.

During the opening ceremony of the Calgary Conference, Liebowitz told the audience that the majority of risk managers are not receiving their policy within 30 days of conception. This information – acquired in part through the RCC’s survey of all Canadian chapters – means the market is not compliant with what risk managers need as buyers.

“We need to change the way business is done,” Liebowitz said. “We must demand we receive our policies within 30 days of conception.”

In order to facilitate change, and to realize the ultimate goal of timely, accurate policy issuance, Liebowtiz and RIMS executive director Mary Roth will spend the next 10 months visiting insurers, brokers and risk managers.

“We hope to bring together all three parties in a strategic alliance,” Liebowitz told the crowd. He encouraged a tri-partite agreement between the parties in which “the insurers will issue the policy within 30 days and the policy will be accurate.”

“The brokers will be able to turn this policy around within an appropriate timeframe of no more than 14 days. And we, as the risk managers, will have our submission to the markets 30 or 45 days before expiration of our programs.”

Part of the solution RIMS is working on is developing a standardized application form. Currently, policy appl ication forms are dependent on which insurer the risk manager is dealing with.

“We need to come up with a standardized form, so that all the markets conform to one policy application,” Liebowitz said. “The application must be electronic, so it can be transmitted in electronic form.

“We need to stand up and demand the service we are paying for and the markets will comply.”