The 2010 PLUS D&O Symposium officially kicked off today with a schedule packed full of interesting and informative sessions. 

The unofficial start, however, took place last night with the annual "Shots for Charity" fundraiser hockey game.  Your semi-official PLUS blogger didn't make it to the game, but was told that it was another rousing success.  More than 100 people attended the game and, not surprisingly, many more were at the ESPN Zone after-party.

In case you didn't know it, here's the standard industry equation:

Insurance + Party = Lots of People 

Here's a graphic artist's recreation of what the game may have looked like from the Goodyear Blimp:

Your semi-official blogger did, however, make the sacrifice of attending the Tri-City Brokerage party at the Pig 'n Whistle in midtown.  It was a loud and enjoyable affair hosted by the incomparable Garrett Koehn of the San Francisco office.  Tri-City is one of the leading wholesale brokerages in the United States and quite an impressive outfit.  AmWins invited me to a party tonight, so I'm sure I'll have some good things to say about them tomorrow.  You see how I roll.  Here are some pix from the Tri-City event:

Damian Jocke of ACE Westchester told me that he yearned for his wonderful wife, Ellen, and their two cute daughters back home in Atlanta.  Here Damian is shown making a gallant effort to keep his spirits up with colleagues Andrea Landers, Brooke Atwood and Devon Lay. Good job on putting up a brave front Damian.  He was in tears shortly after this picture was snapped.  Poor guy.

Dixie Noel tries to ignore Tom McArdle by leaning against him as if he were a post.  Tom was regaling Dixie with stories of his baseball stardom at Middletown South High School in New Jersey.  Tom, a proud alum of the baseball team, was almost drafted.  By the US Army. 

Cary Nichols (left) of Arch San Francisco and Kirsten Slawson (guess which one she is) yukk it up with host Garrett Koehn.  Garrett was inadvertently omitted from the All-Star Chapter of the leading insurance book "Claims Made & Reported," but that omission has been rectified here.  Great party Garrett! 

Katie Verry and Marty Maslanka seem way too overjoyed to be pictured on this blog.  Oh well, it's one of life's simple pleasures I guess... 

Today's PLUS D&O Symposium program began with a panel on Securities Litigation. It was moderated by Boris Feldman of the Wilson, Sonsini law firm.  Attorneys Bruce Angiolillo, John "Sean" Coffey (doesn't really seem like a nickname for a "John" but that's what the program says...), Patrick Coughlin, Daniel Kramer and Linda Chatman Thomsen provided a lively and insightful review of recent cases and the current state of securities law in the U.S.  I was so engrossed that I forgot to take a picture of the panel, sorry.  They were all good-looking people, as are most in insurance.  I'm hoping this flattery will keep you reading... 

The 11 am session was titled "Mediation Tactics: Who's Part of the Problem/Solution?"  Kevin LaCroix (author of the excellent insurance blog "D&O Diary" at www.dandodiary.com; you should read it as soon as you're done reading every word of this one) was the moderator.  He did an excellent job of leading the panel to reveal some useful mediation strategies. 

Here's a picture of the panel:

 As you can see, I was way in the back of the room. 

Yes, I admit that I got there a bit late. I didn't want to march to the front of the room to snap a photo with my impressive Blackberry camera phone, so this is what you get. 

This is a lesson to everyone out there: PLUS sessions are very popular, get there early and find yourself a seat.  Do as I say and not as I do. Back to the session....

The panel consisted of attorney Max Berger, senior XL Claims manager Steve Gladstone (a former colleague of mine and a good guy so he gets a shout out), attorney Gregory Markel and the Honorable Daniel Weinstein, a retired judge who now serves as a mediator with the JAMS service out of San Francisco. 

This was an especially lively session.  Judge Weinstein, in particular, peppered the conversation with both great insights and some hilarious comments.  At one point he observed "What's that they say, most of the problems of Western Civilization began with .... the brokers!"  

The crowd roared in laughter, except for broker Andy Doherty of Willis NY, one of the best in the business, who jumped up in defense of his fellow brokers by yelling: "No they didn't, the problems started with retired judges!"

Actually, Andy didn't do that.  But I'll bet he was thinking it.  Andy is a friend of mine, and I owed him a favor, so I told him I'd mention him in the blog.  I didn't say how I'd mention him.  Favor repaid. 

Judge Weinstein also made the interesting observation that A-Side insurance coverage is now being called upon to pay claims, whereas in the old days it was a dormant coverage, along the lines of title insurance.  "Who ever made a claim under their title insurance?" he asked.  Great point.

The keynote luncheon speaker was Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City.  Here's the best picture that I could get of him without being restrained by security:

Bad shot, I know.  Hey, he's an important guy and he doesn't let semi-official bloggers get too close, who could blame him?  This looks sort of like your uncle in a family photo from the 1970s.  Photos of Bigfoot are also usually of this quality.   

Mr. Giuliani spoke about today's economic crisis, how it was caused and how the solutions should be approached.  It was a fascinating, non-partisan discussion.  If you want to know more, you should've attended, sorry.

The first afternoon session, about excess Side-A coverage, was moderated by the very moderate David Goldstein of Willis Boston.  Dave is also a former colleague of mine and a terrific broker.   He's also very modest.  He's a modest and moderate moderator.  You can quote me on that.

Joining Dave on the podium were Carl Bach of Navigators' London office, Randall Bodner, a partner at Ropes & Gray and a former model in the "Most Beautiful Lawyers of Boston" calendar (it's true; I'll bet he didn't expect to see that tidbit in this blog), Joan Goldberg of Wells Fargo Insurance Services in Boston (and one of my industry faves), Mike Karmilowicz (friends just call him "Karm") Head of the Management Solutions Group at Zurich in New York, and a gentleman from ACE Bermuda whose name is not in the program because he was a last-minute substitute for a colleague.  Sorry, I didn't have the presence of mind to write it down when they flashed his name on the screen.  He was a good speaker though, a Brit.  They always sound smart even when what they're saying is total rubbish.  This guy made some excellent points though.  If I come across his name later, I'll include it in a future posting.

This was another very informative session that included cutting-edge insights from a number of perspectives.  The panel also revealed the single most important factor to consider when purchasing or underwriting A-Side coverage.  It was.....nah, if you weren't there you're SOL again.  Sorry.  Next time attend in person and you'll learn these valuable things.   

Finally, I took this photo in the lobby earlier today:

 Here we see senior Chubb honchos (actually, Chubb doesn't have "honchos," let's call them "leaders") Evan Rosenberg and Dave Williams.   They were seen plotting Chubb's world domination of the insurance industry.  Shortly after news of this summit among Chubb's brain trust hit the stock market, Chubb's stock price rocketed to new highs.  

Of course, you know that none of this is true, but Evan and Dave are great guys and I wanted to bust their chops in here somehow....Chubb's stock price may have actually fell if analysts saw them together!  

That's it for this posting, stay tuned for more to come.  Click back often, I need to ratings to maintain my cushy PLUS gig!