Dear Member,

One of the centre-pieces of the AICLA calendar is the AICLA/ANZIIF Sydney Claims Convention, this year held on 21 September. The day before the convention we held the Trainee Adjusters’ Workshop, which featured about 30 delegates who heard presentations on a range of fundamental skills, such as scopes of damage, business interruption and ethics.

Then, the day of the convention arrived and the general verdict was that it was a marvellous convention, attended by almost 350 people making it one of the largest insurance conventions in Australasia. A wide range of subjects was discussed from technology to the personal: dealing with argumentative claimants. After the convention was the dinner. Again, this was a wonderful occasion and gave guests the chance to meet and mingle with friends and also to make new acquaintances.

The highlight of the evening, for me, was the honour to present the various awards, for which two recipients were present.

The Diploma of Loss Adjusting Prize was awarded to Lebnan El Hajj, an engineering adjuster with McLarens, who was the best student completing the Diploma this year. I spoke with Lebnan during the dinner and was impressed by his professionalism and dedication to becoming an expert loss adjuster. It is not easy juggling work, family and study (and in his case a second country and language) but the people who tend to make it to the top of the profession realise that study and learning are the hallmarks of a professional. Lebnan was also awarded the Syd McDonald Young Adjuster Prize.

Particularly being a business interruption adjuster, I was very honoured indeed to be able to present a Life Membership award to Tony Morgan. His outstanding service and involvement in the industry over a period of 45 years means that his name is well known to a vast number of people within the insurance industry. He is a past president of one of AICLA’s predecessors, as well as a past president of ANZIIF (one of only two loss adjusters to have been president in its 130 year history). He is still active in assisting the institute, as recently as six months ago giving his time to participate in a workshop on the skills unit conversion process. And, of course, he has demonstrated the great sense to be an accountant adjuster!

Finally, I would like to thank all of the people who helped make the convention a success; the organising committee; the sponsors (without whose support there is no convention) and in particular the Platinum Sponsor, Australian Disaster Recovery; and Gemma and Ash from the AICLA office who worked tirelessly all day to keep things on track.

I hope we can see all who attended, as well as some new faces, at next year’s event.