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By ROGER CROMBIE, a Bermuda-based columnist for Risk & Insurance®
DAY 1

This is by no means a defeat. Imagine how thinly attended a Florida banking beanfest would have been. The fact that "only" 5,000 or 6,000 people may have traveled to Orlando in fact speaks well for the insurance industry.

The word in the hall is that senior execs are in greater supply this year than they were in previous years. It's the grunts who are no-shows in 2009. Most of the people I've spoken to view this, in part, as a good thing.

Among the biggest names highly visible: Joe Plumeri of Willis, in a white shirt. I thought he only wore stripes.

Also: Bermuda's indefatigable Finance Minister Paula Cox, who will tomorrow morning accompany Premier Ewart Brown on a round-the-hall tour. Cox, who works at ACE when she's not ministering to our needs, has just signed a bunch of tax information exchange agreements with Scandinavian and other countries. If you're a naughty Norwegian or a dodging Dane (or even a fraudulent Finn), Bermuda is not the place for you to bury your tax obligations.

WOMEN, FOOD AND GETTING MORE NAKED

It seems to me that a larger percentage of women are in attendance this year. This is exactly what insurance needs: hot babes. Actually, everyone's hot because it's 85 degrees and the humidity is just a shade under 11,000 percent. I was in Denver 24 hours ago, where we were digging out after a foot of snow and the humidity was zero. Insurance is hell.

The tie is dead. Not just because I left mine in Denver. Most men are wandering around in expensive suits, tieless. This is a tragedy. It means that one day soon, teenagers will start wearing ties just to upset their parents and then, in years to come, the tie will gradually work its way back to the mainstream. Meanwhile, insurance people will be wearing cargo shorts, metal in their faces and baseball hats backwards.

Food is a hot topic. In the hall, there really is no such thing as a free lunch. Widely available, however, is the $10 turkey sandwich. This is an outrage. And in a catastrophic development of stunning proportions, no one in Florida seems to have heard of Coca-Cola. It's Pepsi everywhere you look. Get on the case, Coke. Those of us who can't drink Diet Pepsi face horrendous weight gain as the week progresses.

THE BUSES

As ever, tour buses ferry those of us staying nowhere near the Convention Center to and from our hotels. Sitting on a packed bus, it struck me that for most of these insurance types, this is probably the first time they have ridden a 12-wheeler since they were in a school bus.

This year's headrests come courtesy of Swiss Re. They feature an itty-bitty kitty; in its footsteps, upside-down, lurks a lion. I have no idea what this means--whatever else Swiss Re may be, a kitty cat it is not--but what looks like the king of the jungle drowning upside down could not be a better metaphor.

DAY 2

It was bound to happen. I spent time today with the IRS. Surprisingly, it was all very good-natured, but with me being from a place where tax revenues are raised sensibly, you'd think they'd have bludgeoned me with sticks. They would have, I'm sure, had they been the actual IRS, but this particular IRS is Brad Dunlap's company, Insurance Recruiting Specialists.

IRS specializes in insurance staffing nationwide. Dunlap reports that while the direct hiring side of his business (a.k.a., headhunting) is down on account of current market conditions, his consulting business has improved dramatically. Having two strings to his bow, he and his company are weathering the storm.

Dunlap didn't say this, but he probably would have, if asked: even in bad times, there are good restaurants. We tend to assume that when the news is bad, all of us are proceeding straight to hell in a mutual hand basket at roughly the same speed. Not so. Some savvy operators, like Dunlap, have used their noggins and are coping well with change.

Now, if we can just get the other IRS to change some of its ridiculous rules and regulations, we'll be all right.

TAXED IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

A tax partner at one of the leading accounting practices told me that the poor so-and-sos milked by Bernie Madoff will not be able to claim relief on tax paid on nonexistent earnings (as reported to them and the IRS by Madoff) for much beyond the past three years. But surely they will be able to take the loss on their stolen millions, I asked. Not a chance, I was told. The IRS says you can't lose money on an investment you didn't make. But you can apparently pay tax on such investments. See what I mean about ridiculous regulations?

A similar horror show is affecting some of the recently divorced. A couple of British judges have been refusing to reopen divorce rulings they made, just because the economic world has collapsed. I'll give you an example. A cheating husband, let's call him William Jefferson, was sued for divorce last year and the judge decided that fairness would be served by an even split of the assets. The Jeffersons had assets worth $3 million at the time: a $1 million home and $2 million worth of stocks with Bernie Madoff.

Mrs. J got the house and was due $0.5 million from the sale of the stocks. Mr. J, upon trying to sell the stocks, found out that the portfolio was worthless. Net result: Mr. J owes his ex half a million, but has not a penny in the world. That's his bad luck, says the judicial system, and the IRS agrees.

But enough of this: No insurer ever got divorced or made a bad investment, so there's nothing to worry about there.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

"Are you Brian Duperreault?" a limousine driver asked me. Duperreault is the head of Marsh, and I'm just a schmuck, but it was a natural mistake. We're both devilishly good-looking and humble about it.

"I wish I were," I said. "If I see him, I'll tell him you're here."

I was at the time outside the Orange County Conference Center, so-called because everyone down here is orange, sneaking a fag. (For the benefits of American readers, I should explain that this involved deviant behavior: i.e., smoking a cigarette).

In due course, the real Duperreault arrived. We had a brief chat. I got to know him when he ran ACE in Bermuda. He is one of the most thoroughly decent gentlemen I have ever met. He reported that he continues to enjoy his new position as leader of the free world ... or whatever it is that you call the head of Marsh ... and I'd swear he looked younger and less careworn than he did in the short period of voluntary unemployment that followed his retirement from ACE.

I suppose if you were recently laid off from Marsh as part of the restructuring, you might think less of Brian D., but you'd be missing the big picture.

CUBA LIBRE

And so to the Bermuda Reception at the Cuba Libre Restaurant, not far from the conference center. It's always one of the best bashes, and I know a few people there--i.e., everyone--and some of them don't hate me.

My kind remarks about Minister of Finance Paula Cox in yesterday's RIMS diary were repaid when the Minister told me that she had quoted something I'd written in some comments she had made earlier in the day. Take that, William Safire.

DAY 3

The third act of RIMS takes place without most of the major players. The great and mighty of insurance--or any industry, for that matter--don't like to be out of the office too long. At a time when AIG staff are being informed by their government owners that incurring any expense whatsoever will result in the death penalty, "He's in Florida at a conference" lacks a certain ring.

A reportedly quite large number of visitors to the environs of the convention center in Orlando did not bother to register or, therefore, pay the required fee. Setting up shop in a nearby hotel offers the registered a chance to break out of the confines of the convention center and take in a little spring sunshine on the way to meetings.

"Most of the people who attend conferences in our center stay in there all day long," a taxi driver told me. "They never come out. You guys are all over the place, all day long."

The number of deals being discussed at each local hotel was directly proportionate to the building's distance from the conference hall. At the Rosen Center Plaza--one of three Rosen hotels near each other, all with similar names--mobs of insurance types swarmed in the giant lobby all day long. At the Rosen Plaza Center a mile up the road, fewer insurers were obvious. I didn't get to the Plaza Center Rosen, or the Center Plaza Rosen.

DUCK!

I was, however, at the Peabody, where surrealism is part of everyday business. If you know about this, you might not think it's strange. Every day, I'm told, at a certain hour, the ducks march through the hotel's sumptuous bar. Need I say more? Perhaps.

Some ducks live in the fountain at the hotel bar. At the anointed hour, they waddle around a bit and fluff their feathers, while a member of staff cleans the fountain. The body of water at its base must be pure duck soup.

The bar was heaving with insurance people, odd ducks, many of them. The whole business riveted their attention, and mine, until I realized that four ducks waddling around was the entire story. I had seen ducks before. This is Florida, I was thinking, until someone informed me that the Peabody is a chain and other Peabodies in other cities have other ducks living in them.

My mind drifted. I began thinking in headlines. The best was--remember that a room full of insurance people are staring at waterfowl--duck and cover.

Thank you, thank you.

WAITING IN THE WINGS

At lunch, a risk manager said of his company's ERM program: "Everyone's waiting for S&P to tell us what to do."

At the ratings agencies, everyone is waiting for the U.S. government to tell them what to do. At the government, everyone is waiting for President Obama's appointees to be approved in their new positions. And at the Peabody, everyone's waiting to see some ducks. I'm waiting for a cheeseburger from room service.

MORAL HAZARD

The ugly business of moral hazard arose during that lunch at the Plaza Rosen Center. Having ordered the buffet, I qualified for dessert. They had soft ice cream: bowls, but no cones. Soft ice cream is my Achilles' heel, but how much is too much? If I filled two bowls, say, and went back for more, everyone would know I'm a pig. If I took too little, my memories of Florida would forever be shot through with rue.

I had one biggish bowl. We Woosters are known for our ability to compromise.

THE FLORIDA KEYS

It seems I recorded some thoughts in the bus on the way to Day Three this morning, although I don't recall being awake at the time. I wrote: "The hotels near the conference center look a lot like giant prisons--big, bleak ugly boxes. The day release system is in use. At night, thousands of insurance inmates are locked down, some enjoying conjugal visits with loved ones, colleagues and new friends.

"If Martians landed at the conference center, they would think three things. One: These Earthlings live in giant prisons. Two: The rate at which the ponytail occurs among male insurers is one in many thousands. Three: The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund is the worst idea this galaxy has ever seen."

BLOGS FROM THE EDGE

The Grand Hall of Insurance, or whatever the tradeshow floor is called, is always a study. Center stage is hogged by the giants, but the real action takes place on the sidelines. There sit the safety footwear and goggles people, the minor offshore jurisdictions and the often incomprehensibly niche stuff.

The rules prevent the dismantling of booths before a certain cut-off point, Wednesday evening, I would guess. I stayed through Thursday once and even went to the official RIMS luncheon. I think they served duck. So I'm off tomorrow morning, and I do mean morning. The first flight is at 6:15 a.m., which means leaving for the airport at 4.

One day, an airline will come along that understands that people don't want to get out of bed at 4 a.m., especially those who don't normally go to bed until 4 a.m. This is my dream.

April 23, 2009

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