Meeting 14 November 2006

Dear SIPSIG member

Many thanks for your reply to my last circular expressing an interest in being part of SIPSIG - the Smaller Independent Practices Specialist Interest Group. I received an amazing response from the CILA membership and our group now boasts a membership of over 100. This proves to me that by acting together we have the opportunity to be a strong and influential voice in CILA.

A meeting has been arranged for Tuesday 14 November in London. This will give members a chance to meet the others in the group and question President Harry Roberts and me about the direction that CILA is taking. I enclose the draft agenda for the meeting from which you can see that there are important topics for consideration and I hope as many of you as possible will attend. There will be plenty of opportunity to raise any other questions during the ‘Open forum’ item, so if you have a particular concern or suggestion this is the time to get it off your chest. If anyone specifically wants to circulate a paper and introduce another item for the agenda please can they do this through me before 7 November so I have a chance to circulate it to the members.

I have been asked about eligibility to join the group and the group name. From choice I would have chosen a better acronym but as so often in this situation you only start thinking of a shortened name when you get fed up with saying (and typing) the whole mouthful. We must use the ‘SIG’ bit to fall in line with the rest of CILA and we decided on ‘SIP’ some time ago for a few reasons. All of the inaugeral members of the group were from businesses that were ‘Smaller’ than the national/international loss adjusting companies but we didn’t think ‘Small’ was appropriate because that implied insignificance – whereas we have significant well established profitable niche adjusters in our ranks who are market leaders in their field. The other common feature was that our businesses are owned by loss adjusters not financial institutions. This was not intended as a derogatory reference to any lack of independent judgement amongst our larger competitors but to demonstrate that our businesses are owned by independent individuals who are loss adjusters. The word practices embraces sole traders, partnerships and limited companies. Hence we became SIPSIG.

Anyone who shares our interests is welcome to join, but it is unlikely to be of any relevance to someone working for the largest national or international loss adjusting companies. The particular speciality of your loss adjusting practice does not really matter because we are not looking at technical issues, so niche adjusters are especially welcome.

I am also enclosing a list of the members that have asked to be involved. I am sure there will be some names that I have omitted in error or whose contact details we have got wrong. Please put the word around and encourage more CILA members to attend. We have capacity at the venue for over a hundred so we needn’t worry that there won’t be enough space.

CILA Council has decided that these meetings should be self-funding. We will endeavour to seek sponsorship for future meetings but for this meeting we have to make a small charge of £10 per head for attendees to cover the hire of the room and catering. I hope this will not be a deterrent for what is likely to be an important event - both for the potential it offers smaller practices individually and for the future of the profession.

Please let me know – either via the email address below or via CILA whether you will be attending. I look forward to seeing you there.

Roger Topping LLB (Hons.), ACII, FCILA
roger.topping@topmarkadjusters.co.uk