Indiana YAC Hosts 2010 Indiana YAC Conference

The Indiana Young Agents Committee hosted nearly 120 agency and company personnel at its 2010 Indiana Young Agents Conference on May 5-7, 2010 at the Blue Chip Hotel and Casino in Michigan City.  Attendees of the Conference had access to classes providing nine hours of agent continuing education credit, the annual YAC spring golf outing, an ‘80’s dinner and party with a live band, an outdoor luau on Lake Michigan, and numerous other networking opportunities.

The centerpiece of each YAC Conference is continuing education.  A total of nine hours of agent continuing education hours spread over three classes was made available to those attendees of the conference who wished to participate.  Topics for this year’s CE included an interactive, competitive program entitled “Survivor Meets Family Feud,” which was conducted by Rick Pitts, Vice President and General Counsel of Arlington/Roe & Co., Indianapolis; a Management Protection course, conducted by Mark Swayze and Meghan Chisholm from Travelers; and a sales training course conducted by Edwin Lamont from Lamont Consulting Group, Palm Beach, FL.  All three of the classes were extremely well attended and well received by those who participated in them.

 “We would like to thank all of our speakers and their sponsoring organizations for providing interesting and practical information to the conference attendees through their continuing education courses,” said incoming 2010-2011 Indiana YAC Chair Addie Wood from Smith Sawyer Smith in Rochester.  “We try to provide as many networking opportunities as possible with our events, but continuing education is the centerpiece of our YAC Conference every year.”

 The 2010 Indiana YAC Conference also provided a number of networking events designed to bring together agents and company personnel to interact in an informal and fun atmosphere.  The events included the annual YAC Spring Golf Outing, which was held at Potttawatomie Country Club in Michigan City; an ‘80’s Party with the live band ‘80’s Enough and a costume contest; as well as a luau complete with a steel drum player on the chilly shores of Lake Michigan. 

 “Indiana YAC takes great pride in offering a great number of networking events to our members and sponsoring companies each year.  The events at this year’s Conference were outstanding and extremely well attended – showing the value that our members and company sponsors see in these functions,” continued Wood.

One of the highlights of each YAC Conference is the swearing in of the Indiana YAC Committee’s officers for the year.  Handling the searing-in duties this year were Patrick O’Connor, 2010 IIAI President from City Securities in Indianapolis and Bev Barney, IIAI State National Director from Mavum in Indianapolis.  The new officers for 2010-2011 for Indiana YAC are:

• Chair – Addie Wood, Smith Sawyer Smith, Rochester
• Vice-Chair – Andrew Roe, Arlington/Roe & Co., Indianapolis
• Secretary-Treasurer – Brooke Hamstra, Wetzel Insurance Agency, Warsaw
• Immediate Past Chair – David George, Morrison Galliher, Muncie

As an added bonus for this year’s Conference, two members of the Executive Committee for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America were in attendance and addressed the Indiana YAC Annual Business Meeting.  David Walker from Hartland Insurance Agency in Hartland, MI noted the importance of young agents to the future of the independent agency system and thanked those in attendance for participating.  Mike Miley from Gibson Insurance Group in Plymouth and Chair-Elect of the IIABA also spoke to the group.  He spoke about how highly Indiana YAC is thought of on the national level and discussed how proud he is to be from a state that is so well represented. 

The leadership and membership of Indiana YAC would like to thank the generous organizations who have provided sponsorship dollars to support the activities of YAC for 2010.  “As Chair of Indiana YAC, I would like to thank all of our 2010 sponsoring organizations on behalf of myself, the other members of the Steering Committee and our members.  The contributions from sponsors like ours allow Indiana YAC to offer quality, low cost functions for our members and sponsors to participate in.  Without this generous support, Indiana YAC would not have grown into one of the top young agent groups in the country, as it has over the last several years,” concluded Wood. 

For more information on becoming an Indiana YAC member or sponsor, please contact Steve Duff at the IIAI at duff@bigi.org. 

See all of the photos from the conference on our photos page!