Chamber Insurance Summit Opens with Reminder to Keep Lobbying

The Florida Chamber of Commerce opened its sixth annual Insurance Summit on Wednesday with its president and CEO, Mark Wilson, reminding industry participants that while business groups have the ears of state lawmakers, they need to keep pursuing their causes with politicians.

Were going through a period of time where the answers to questions are really quite simple that even my kids can answer them, but the political mountains we must climb begin to get quite tall, Wilson said.

Property and auto insurance have received much of the attention of legislators in recent session, with health insurance --because the state must determine how it responds to the federal Affordable Care Act --getting most of the attention in the coming 2013 session, Wilson said.

"As important as our guests are and as knowledgeable as our speakers are, there is a lot of work that gets done in the hallways and there's a lot that gets done at lunch, and lets not miss those opportunities as well," Wilson said.

The three-day event at Disneys BoardWalk Inn in Orlando is to include panel discussions on Floridas response to the federal Affordable Care Act and the states recently signed no-fault insurance reform law.

Gov. Rick Scott, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and Citizens Property Insurance Corp. President and CEO Barry Gilway are also listed among the featured speakers.