John N. Reinman, Immediate Past President (left)
and Anthony Joseph, President (right)

January 4, 2008

IRU Members and Associates:

2007 will turn out to be another very good year financially for all IRU members as there were very few catastrophes and it will also prove to be good for the IRU Association in all respects.

After 40 years your Association continues to remain strong and we have been able to secure some new members during 2007. This continued effort by your Board of Directors and the membership to increase the membership will continue in 2008 and beyond. New members are the lifeline of our Association and all of us must continue to work hard in this endeavor. If anyone has any ideas regarding potential new members, please pass this information on to a board member as soon as possible.

With regard to the financial stability of the IRU, I am pleased to inform you that the IRU continues to be in very sound financial shape and your board continues to budget carefully and astutely each year. Our annual dues still remain very modest for an Association of the stature of the IRU. We ask you to consider additional financial support for our "internship program", as this is expensive to run, but is one of the major the reasons for the existence of the IRU. Education is of prime importance to our industry and the IRU does a great deal to further this cause. The additional financial support each member gives, in addition to their annual dues, is greatly appreciated and well used by the Education Committee. Also, the IRU continues training classes in Bermuda with the assistance of Bermuda College. We fully expect these to be as well attended in 2008 and beyond as they were in 2007. This will greatly assist our many Bermuda members and as well as promoting the Association's education program.

The conferences and educational seminars that were put on during 2007 were, as I am sure you would agree, very well run and attended. All had extremely informative programs provided at a very reasonable cost to the membership. A mix of senior and junior attendees is important to all who attend our conferences and I would encourage as many of you that can to attend our Spring and Fall conferences and our Seminars in 2008. I thank the Program Committee for doing such a fine job of getting such high-caliber speakers and programs together for us. This, I know from experience, is a tough job and takes a lot of time and I appreciate all the Program Committee's efforts on our behalf and I know they would appreciate your attendance at our meetings.

The Claims Committee decided during 2007 that in their opinion it was more in line with today's industry thinking to bring the Underwriters/Intermediaries and Claims professionals together. They approached the Board with the idea of combining the annual Claims meeting with the annual Spring meeting and all agreed this was a great idea. So beginning in 2008 and forward, all Claims personnel are invited to attend both the annual Spring/Fall meetings. We very much hope many do attend as they can add much to the meetings.

The Spring 2008 Conference at Hilton Head is all set up and the program has been completed and posted on the IRU website. Please take the time to look at it and of course sign up online to attend.

We would like to thank all the members who have kindly taken interns during 2007 and strongly encourage all members to consider doing this. It should be noted that many of the interns we have had in the past have been hired into our industry, demonstrating the importance of the internship program to the IRU. I thank the Internship Committee for all their dedicated hard work.

My third year as President of your Association has been very interesting and rewarding and as we enter my final year, I thank you and very much appreciate the trust you have put in me. For what will be a total of four years as your President, I very much hope that I have served you all well. I would very much like to thank the Board of Directors for their continued dedication and support of the IRU and also thank all those who so generously volunteer their valuable time to sit on our committees. I hope that many more of you will come forward in the future and offer to sit on one or more of these committees.

I would also very much like you all to join with me in thanking the many generous members who have sponsored events at our meetings during 2007. They certainly helped to make our 40th year a resounding success. I very much hope they and others will do the same by sponsoring events during our 41st year. All monies raised go into the education fund and this is something we should all be very proud of.

It is also important for us to pay tribute to Amy Barra, our Executive Director, and her staff for running the IRU so professionally during 2007. We, on the Board, will continue to give them our full support, as I am sure all the members will.

I hope 2008 is a good year for all our members and that our membership will continue to grow. If anyone has any questions, observations or ideas as to how to continue to improve the IRU, our Association, please feel free to call me or any board member. Thank you all for your support of our great Association.

Best Regards,

Tony Joseph
President