It all began back in 1997 at the annual meeting in Dallas….
Remember ’97? A pretty successful year for a lot of reasons: Pathfinder landed on Mars, J.K. Rowling’s first “Harry Potter” book is published, Tiger’s the youngest golfer (21 yrs old) to win the Masters, Steve Jobs returns to Apple, and most importantly – the idea for the Personal Lines Interest Section emerged at the suggestion of Clyde “Clint” Gillespie, CPCU.
Clint asked the Society to consider having a Section (known today as Interest Groups – IG’s) to fill the needs of the members that worked exclusively in Personal Lines. The next year, the proposal was formally approved for Pilot status by the Board of Governors at the 1998 annual meeting in San Diego. Oh and 1998 was a pretty good year too…. The International Space Station began assembly, a little search engine was founded, called “Google”, and a new US $20 bill was introduced which made it harder to counterfeit (wait – who uses cash anymore?).
The founding Executive Committee, led by Clint, worked hard to create a culture of making cool PLIG things happen! The “Personally Speaking” newsletter was published frequently, seminars were sponsored at each annual meeting as well as other non-CPCU events, research for trade magazines was produced, the first web-based training by any Interest Section was held, etc.
At the 2002 CPCU Annual Meeting in Orlando, the Board of Governors reviewed our petition for permanent status and granted approval! Since then, PLIG has accomplished so much more by means of a diverse group of volunteer leaders. Partnership with local chapters and the Society have produced original symposia, webinars, participation in task forces, collaboration with the Society’s Leadership Council, etc. Please check out our full history of Annual Meeting programs and past rosters in the PLIG documents section of our website. Nowhere else can you find such a variety of insurance professionals so dedicated to education and membership growth!