Advocating To Do What’s Right for YOU Dustin Miller
One of your greatest Big I membership benefits is our legislative and regulatory advocacy. We understand, as small business owners and active insurance professionals, your job is to tend to your business, take care of your customers and not monitor all of the developments in Frankfort and Washington, D.C.
dealing with customers operating essential main street businesses. Not only do legislators value your voice on insurance issues, but they also WANT to know what you think about these issues.
Our job at the Big I is to provide opportunities for our members to share their voice. These opportunities include the D.C. Fly-In (ZoomYour Big I staff in Kentucky and our national office In this year), our Legislative Day at the Capitol in D.C., along with myself and Prentice Harvey as in Frankfort, giving through our political action outside consultants, keep tabs on the proposed committees and serving on the Big I Government regulations and legislation that could impact our Affairs committee. You can share your voice on industry and your customers. We review new bill pertinent insurance industry issues in a collective filings in the General Assembly and Congress, look way to maximize their impact. at proposed and existing regulations for business But don’t forget, all politics are LOCAL! impact and provide an avenue for you to raise issues you see in your agency with government Legislators and Congressmen care about how officials. This service is a significant member the laws they make will impact their local benefit, but like all of the benefits of a Big I communities. One of the first questions we get membership, the more you put into it, the more asked when we talk to a legislator about a bill is you will get out. inevitable, “What does (insert local agent name) think of this bill, and does this bill hurt/help them?” The relationships that our members have I think of advocacy as a three-legged stool. Having and your status in your local communities create important issues, engaged association staff and this question. It could be having the legislator competent professional representation are just ask a client, being an active member of your local two legs of that stool. The third leg, and arguably chamber or civic organization or supporting the the most important, is YOU! Legislators and legislator in their campaign. You earned the right regulators value the input of the Big I in insurance for your voice to be heard in the policy-making policy-making because you are on the front lines process. That’s where you come in.
20 | Kentucky IA - Fall 2020
