Hello captive colleagues,

I hope you are well. Here in the US and globally we are going through very challenging times as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. This is having varying impacts. Our industry is seeing record growth as the hard market and the pandemic effects are meeting in a perfect storm resulting in heightened interest and understanding of the importance of using captive insurance companies.

While that’s good news for our industry, it makes things very difficult for associations, especially when it comes to conference planning. Many industry conferences are being canceled, going virtual or being rescheduled to a later date. I have spoken with numerous industry stakeholders and taken much counsel from our members, sponsors and exhibitors regarding plans for our CICA 2021 International Conference, March 14-16 at the Westin Kierland, Scottsdale, Arizona.

What I, and our CICA leaders, have heard repeatedly is that many of you are burnt out on virtual events and are eager to meet again in-person. Many of us are itching to get out of the house, back on the road, meeting with our clients, colleagues and friends as soon as it is safe to do so. We have heard this loud and clear. This feedback has been helpful as we evaluate next steps regarding our conference.

If there is one thing this pandemic has taught us it is to be prepared for anything and everything. Normally at this time of year, we would be launching registration and opening up the hotel block for our conference. However, these are not normal times. At this time, we have decided to move forward with conference planning, but postpone our registration process as we continue to evaluate the ability to safely host our annual conference in March.

We feel it would be premature to decide on canceling our conference, postponing, or providing content in an alternate format at this time. It is too early to have all the information we need to make an informed decision. We also have an excellent professional association headquarter company as our partner and we can pivot quickly when we need to do so.

As we are carefully deciding what our next steps will be, it is our hope, for everyone’s sakes, that things will be safer by March. However, we are not delusional with that optimism. We fully understand there is a significant chance it would not be safe to hold an in-person event at that time.

In the event we have to cancel, we plan to deliver the education that was scheduled for the March conference through an on-demand platform. We hope to provide this for a nominal fee or perhaps free to CICA members if appropriate sponsorship levels are reached.

If we have to cancel, we will not offer a virtual conference. We are committed to providing the top-notch education experience that not only our members and attendees have come to expect, but the networking, exhibitor and sponsorship experiences as well. Having attended many industry virtual conferences, the networking, sponsorship and exhibitor experience and benefits are less than optimal.

One possibility may be for us to schedule an alternative in-person event for later in the year if we have to cancel our annual conference. We understand that potentially creates scheduling problems especially concerning the vast number of industry events that occur in the second half of the year. Alternatively, we may just look forward to Tucson for CICA’s 2022 conference with the large-scale event you all have come to expect from CICA. It is too early for us to know which of the plans is our best option to pursue. While infections seem to be spiking now, we are all hopeful for a rapid roll-out of multiple COVID-19 vaccines which should accelerate a return to normal life for us all later in 2021 and into 2022.

Nothing can replace CICA’s in-person annual conference. Our continued commitment to you is to bring you the best education and networking event in a domicile-neutral environment that you have come to expect from only CICA. We are hopeful we are able to do that safely and in-person if possible. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and keep you updated on our plans.

Thank you for your continued support of CICA. We hope you understand our current position and desire to deliver a top-notch event for you. As always, we look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Dan