Why do brokers and their organizations continue to support state licensing? The logic of this continues to elude me. A May 4 article in the P & C National Underwriter has the President of the IIABA urging brokers to weigh in on the matter of Federal Regulation. I can only assume he means that this is for continuing state licensing. How can that possibly be? My agency has retail and surplus lines licenses in virtually every state which means 150-200 licenses. In some of those states, we have to file our corporation. Why do people in our own industry support a system that is detrimental to our operations?

The president of the IIABA then goes onto talk about recruiting young people. Maybe if we had a more up to date, internet friendly industry such as national licensing, we might be able to attract young people who appreciate savvy business procedures. Our industry system was set up in 1945 with the passage of the McCarran Ferguson act and our modes of operation have not changed a lot since then.

Isn’t it time we updated the way we do business?