KJKC - News Update

December Update

Dear IMSA Friends:

Hope you all had a great Christmas and Chanukah! We did, but we’re not through celebrating yet and plan to spend New Year’s Day and the next two with family in good old New Jersey. Lest you think that nothing is going on, think again and please read on!

December’s Congratulation to These Fine Companies Who Have Joined or Renewed Their IMSA Membership:

Acacia Life Insurance Co.

Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.

MetLife Insurance Company of Connecticut

MetLife Life and Annuity Company of Connecticut

-- First MetLife Investors Insurance Company

-- General American Life Insurance Company

-- MetLife Investors Insurance Company

-- MetLife Investors USA Insurance Company

-- Metropolitan Life Insurance Company

-- Metropolitan Tower Life Insurance Company

-- New England Life Insurance Company

-- Texas Life Insurance Company, Waco, TX.

Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Co

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co

Shelter Life Insurance Company

Union Central Life Insurance Co.

4^th Quarter Excelsior Should Be on Your Desk

We made a special effort this quarter to get the Excelsior newsletter out so that you would have it before the end of the quarter. Hope you all got and find its contents profitable. If you look closely in the editorial box, you will find that I am now being assisted in the production of Excelsior by my son Jonathan and my daughter Patricia. Hers is the photo of me that appears at the end, and his is the responsibility for proofreading and layout. I’m so glad for the help!

Temporary Insurance Flash Survey

Many thanks to those of you who responded to our November survey on temporary insurance. We have prepared a summary report which we plan to send to those who participated. If you would like participate, you still have time. If you need us to send you another copy of the survey, please let me know. Our plan is to send out the summary in January. Thanks again for all your help.

Guide to Understanding the Insurance Industry

Best’s Review has published its 2007-2008 Guide to Understanding the Insurance Industry. This is a most useful and informative document with sections devoted to an Industry Overview, Property/Casualy Insurance, Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Reinsurrance, Captive Domiciles, How Insurance is Regulated (including a complete list of U.S. and Canadian Regulators), Credential/Events and Resources (where the Kenneth J. Kalis Company is listed for IMSA Consulting & Compliance).

There are also some fun things, like a Test Your Knowledge puzzle section and a great list of celebrities and their insurance coverage. You can order this from Best’s for $10. You’ll be glad you did!

What We Are Up to at the Kenneth J. Kalis Company

We are tooling up for an exciting and busy 2008. In December we held the kickoff for a fleet assessment and have two more companies ready to go in January. I’m very pleased that a new company to IMSA is finalizing its assessment plans, and I am very optimistic about the new IMSA standards, clearing-house and vision. I see growth and vigor and vitality ahead.

Give me a call if we can be of help. 386-462-1074 or kenkalis@gmail.com

Best Practice of the Month (December)

A requirement for renewing your IMSA membership is that your company keep an “ongoing system of monitoring.” There are many ways of doing this, but one of these that we think is a best practice is the maintenance of “Quantitative Exhibits.” This approach creates and regularly updates a one-page exhibit that show proof positive of compliance throughout the membership period. For example, for the licensing standard, the Quantitative Exhibit show how many producers were recruited and how many of these were licensed by quarter. For complaints, it might show the number received by quarter and the average resolution time. For support of industry activities supporting ethical market conduct it might simply list every time a company person attending a qualifying event.

This great monitoring tool is easy to keep up to date if you assign responsibility. It will also make your next self-assessment a breeze. Finally, it will make your QIA a lot happier in meeting the “reasonable assurance’ standard. I ask companies to design QE’s so that if I am asked in court why I said they met the IMSA standard all I’d have to do in hold up that exhibit and everyone would agree that the company was obviously compliant.

Thank you all for your continuing interest in IMSA, ethical market conduct, and in the Kenneth J. Kalis Company.

Ken Kalis
Only Believe. Mark 5:36

The Kenneth J. Kalis Company, Inc.
With associates in:

Boston, MA	Charlotte, NC	Chicago, IL	Denver, CO
Hartford, CT	Houston, TX	Kansas City, MO	Minneapolis, MN
New Orleans, LA	New York, NY	Orlando, FL	Philadelphia, PA
Portland, ME	San Diego, CA	Springfield, IL	Tampa, FL

ANTITRUST NOTICE

The Kenneth J. Kalis Company (KJKC) is committed to adhering strictly to the letter and spirit of the antitrust laws. Our communications and flash surveys are designed solely to provide a forum for the expression of various points of view on topics described in the communications or surveys. Under no circumstances shall these tools be used as a means for competing companies or firms to reach any understanding - expressed or implied - which restricts competition or in any way impairs the ability of any organization to exercise independent business judgment regarding matters affecting competition. Accordingly, we ask for and appreciate any observations or sensitivities you may have to any aspect of our communications or surveys that presents a risk from the standpoint of the antitrust laws.

Past Updates

IMSA Links

I appreciate your continuing interest in and support of ethical market conduct and integrity in our business. Have a great summer. Hope to see many of you soon.

Telephone: 386-462-1074
Fax: 386-462-1075
Email: kenkalis@gmail.com
17220 NW 78th Avenue,
Alachua, FL 32615.

Non-IMSA close:

New Year’s Resolutions

Love them or hate them, you’ve got to deal with them somehow. Here are a few literary ones we’ve gleaned that may inspire you:

Mark Twain

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody
save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.

Charles Lamb

New Year's Day is every man's birthday.

Mark Twain

New Year's Day now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Anais Nin

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

John Dos Passos

Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?

Henry Ward Beecher

Every man/woman should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up or let out one hole more in the buckle if necessary according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man/woman gird himself once more, with his/her face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.

Charles Lamb

No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam.

William Ellery Channing

I will seek elegance rather than luxury; refinement rather than fashion. I will seek to be worthy more than respectable; wealthy and not rich. I will study hard, think quietly, talk gently and act frankly. I will listen to stars and birds, and babes and sages with an open heart. I will bear all things cheerfully, do all things bravely, await occasions and hurry never. In a word I will let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common.

Ann Landers

Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you've always wanted to do but couldn't find the time. ... Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge, and replace it with some pleasant memories. ... Vow not to make a promise you don't think you can keep. ... Walk tall, and smile more. You'll look 10 years younger. Don't be afraid to say, "I love you". Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world.

Your Merry Christmas may depend on what others do for you ... but your Happy New Year depends on what you do for others. -- Unknown

Oscar Wilde

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Anonymous

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.

Leonard Bernstein

From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.

G. K. Chesterton

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards.

Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

I think the one I’m going to adopt, and feed and carry through all of 2008 is not a resolution at all, but a question by the author of Peter Pan.

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?
James M. Barrie

Let’s all say “Yes!”

You can find more quotes from the sites below:

http://www.lmars.com/famous_new_year_quotes.htm

http://www.mail-archive.com/famous-quotes-@yahoogroups.com/msg02243.html

Ken Kalis
386-462-1074
Only Believe. Mark 5:36

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