The Big “I” Legislative Conference was born 37 years ago when a group of 55 agents and Big “I” staff came together with the goal of increasing the flow of information between Congress and the insurance industry.

Frank Mancini, president & CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Insurance Agents, may be the only person who sat at the Hyatt Regency Washington in 1977 who will also be in attendance at this year’s event.

Since then, the Big “I” Legislative Conference has grown in both attendees and importance. But independent agents continue to face legislative issues that affect their agencies, employees and livelihoods almost four decades later. How have things changed? And how have they stayed the same?

Take it from a conference veteran.

IA: Tell us about the first Legislative Conference in 1977.

Mancini: At the time, the Big “I” offices were based in New York, but they did have a Washington presence and a couple of lobbyists. There was a feeling that the state associations needed to get more involved in what the national association was doing in Washington, and someone decided they should have a meeting and invite the states to participate. My recollection is that the focus wasn’t really on visiting members of Congress, at least at this first Legislative Conference. It was more to get the states up to date on what the issues were—more of an educational event. I reported back to our membership in Massachusetts on the different issues that the national association was involved in at the time in Washington. I know I haven’t been to all of them since then. I think I’ve only missed half a dozen or so over the years, but I’m probably the only one still around who went to the first one.

I think there were only about 50 to 60 that attended that first Legislative Conference. The next year, it got a little bigger at 150 or so attendees, but it was still relatively small event compared to what it is today with more than 1,000 agents in Washington.

How important is the annual Legislative Conference?

As far as I’m concerned, meeting with legislators is the most effective means of lobbying. I lobby in Massachusetts, and while it’s nice for legislators to hear from me and other lobbyists, it’s nothing compared to them hearing from their constituents back home—whether that’s letters, telephone calls or a personal visit ( which is the most effective). That can’t happen all the time in Washington just because of the geography, but for the Big “I” to have more than 1,000 agents visiting their members of Congress on the same day is very impressive and very important.

Favorite Legislative Conference story?

When this conference first began in the late 70s/early 80s, Tip O’Neill was the Speaker of the House and he was a Massachusetts Congressman. We had a gentleman who was active in our state association who was a college classmate of Tip O’Neill’s at Boston College, so it was very easy to get an appointment to see the Speaker of the House. Each year we visited him—he knew we were coming in advance, so he probably set this up—but he would open up the bottom drawer of his desk and would take out his Massachusetts Insurance Brokers License. When he first got out of college, he became a licensed insurance broker and always renewed his license every year. He would always show it to us and say, “Hey, I’m an insurance broker!”

What do you hope attendees take away from the Legislative Conference?

I hope that particularly young agents walk away with a better understanding of how important it is to be involved in the legislative process. Politics get a bad name, and certainly there is some truth to all that, but I think it’s so important that insurance agents—being in the heavily regulated industry that we’re in—realize how important it is to be politically involved. That’s not just visiting with legislators, but making sure that when you’re called upon to contact them about an issue or contribute to InsurPac or your local PAC in your home state or to an individual legislator or candidate—those are things that insurance agents need to do. I hope when agents leave the national Legislative Conference that they can walk away and say, “This was important and was a good experience for me. And that it’s something that I as an insurance agent need to do more and more in my professional career.”

How have legislation efforts changed over the years?

Two issues that discussed in 1977 are still being discussed today: national health insurance and federal regulation of insurance—although in those days a company would be regulated by both the federal government and state on the issues.

Some issues, they don’t change after 40 years. Certainly we’re very fortunate last year to pass the extension of TRIA and NARAB II, so those are two issues taken off the agenda this year. But more issues will come and the regulation of insurance is still a big one. We still support the state regulation of insurance and that’s where it’s best regulated—it’s closest to the consumers, so we think it should be maintained. But there are pushes on to have the federal government regulate insurance, so I think that’s going to be a big issue for a few years to come.

Any advice for this year’s attendees?

Make as many appointments as they can with their members of Congress. At the Massachusetts association, we don’t want to overwhelm a member of Congress by sending 20 agents into a meeting, and we try to limit our visits to five or six agents at the most.

It’s interesting listening to members of Congress and the questions that they have. We live with this every day, but these guys are faced with hundreds and hundreds of issues—both domestic and international. To hear from insurance agents about some little issue about who’s going to regulate them, that’s important for an agent to get that message across to a member of Congress.

What would you say to an agent who’s considering going to the event, but isn’t quite convinced it’s worth it?

It’s certainly worth it. Agents come once and then they keep coming. I would certainly encourage young agents, states to get young agents to come. We take advantage every year of the young agent scholarships that national makes available. We’ve had some of our young agents come five or six years in a row. Hopefully they’ll keep coming and we try to add a couple of new ones every year. This is a very important event that every year for the national association and I hope that more and more of our member agents throughout the country support it.

Morgan Smith is IA assistant editor.