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“As we celebrate this special day, let us rejoice that from this place, 500 years from now, will rise a magnificent insurance school.”
-Hernando de Soto, Tallahassee, December 1539
We’re putting a giant bow this week on the gift that was 2022’s Webinar schedule. After this week, the FISCE office will be closed for the holidays and reopen on January 3rd. During the break we’ll be retooling the printing presses for your favorite weekly newsletter - look for the next edition around 1/3.
The FISCE gift guide. We’ve cultivated a list of items sure to make this holiday season sparkle.
- Your new favorite Christmas album. Our pals at the Insurance Journal Academy remastered ten classic carols that will blow your stockings off. The album - “Have a Claims Free New Year” – and samples of tracks such as “O Property O Casualty” (to the tune of “O Christmas Tree”) and “My Drone Hit a Stranger” (to the tune of “Away in a Manger”) are available here.
- The gift that keeps on giving. Treating your team to best-in-class education experiences is like leaving a heaping plate of cookies and glass of cold milk out for them every day. Bulk-hour purchase deals are available for teams with 25 or more licensees.
- Free Ho Ho Home inspections and home hardening grants are available now courtesy of the state of Florida’s My Safe Florida Home Program. If you haven’t already done so, review this information with your insureds and encourage them to apply asap as funding is limited.
- A t-shirt so rare even Santa can’t bring you one. Now is your chance to join the small group of elite insurance pros who have one. A limited number of our legendary FISCE t-shirts (like the one I’m wearing in the picture)
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are available for sale. The shirts are $35 with proceeds donated to ongoing storm relief efforts. The deadline to order is December 16th or while supplies last. To order: email kevin@fisce.com, put “I need that shirt” in the subject line and I’ll take it from there.
Under our tree this week: employment practices, personal and commercial endorsements, P&C licensees get ethical, homeowners weirdness, and coverage for farm risks. I could go on but your attention span is vanishing faster than your bowl of spiked eggnog so I’ll get to it. Here are the highlights:
- Yes, Santa…even you. Any business with workers should have Employment Practices Liability (EPL) insurance. Join CaTHE “Night Before Christmas” Trischan Tuesday morning for a ride through the latest exposures and best tips to properly cover your insureds.
- Sweet, sweet candy or lumps of coal? Join “Christmas StEVE” Lyon Tuesday afternoon for a deep dive on several personal and commercial lines endorsements that either add value to the policy or tear into coverage more viciously then a kid getting after a wrapped gift.
- Hey P&C licensees: Merry Christmas (Now Get Some Ethics). If you’re in need of your 4-hour Law & Ethics Update, join Feliz Davidad Thompson Wednesday morning and he’ll knock it out with you.
- “Ho ho ho, who wouldn’t know” (about these absurd homeowners issues). FISCE’s very own good “Saint Nic”ole Broch slides down the chimney Thursday morning with a magic bag filled with homeowners coverage weirdness and best practices on how to deal with it.
- The part of the story you don’t know: the nativity camels, donkeys and sheep were uninsured. FISCE’s jolly elf himself Samta Bennett closes our year Thursday afternoon with a discussion on property & liability endorsements for farm risks.
For more info about what we’re up to, see the list below and/or review the full Webinar Schedule online.
Finally, if you’re an unapologetic lover of our fine state surf to the bottom of this newsletter for this week’s “F5” (Fascinating Factoid For Fanatical Floridians.)
That’s all for now. Until the next round…cheers!
Kevin “Spiked the Nog” Amrhein, CIC, CBIA
Florida Insurance School Continuing Education (FISCE)
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THE “F5” (FASCINATING FACTOID FOR FANATICAL FLORIDIANS) –
These two factoids appeared in our newsletter last year (vintage!) but we’re rehashing them because they’re that darn good. Enjoy dropping these into the conversation at your upcoming holiday parties and seeing the guests spit out their eggnog in amazement.
F5-1 – Surfing Santa. While everyone loves the look of a palm tree strewn with holiday lights or real oranges as tree ornaments, nothing screams “Christmas in Florida” louder than what occurs annually in Cocoa Beach. What started in 2009 as a small, family event, Surfing Santas (exactly what it sounds like) has grown into a global phenomenon. Free to attend, the event attracts an estimated 10,000 spectators who join the 800+ surfers for a Christmas Eve filled with costumes, waves, and holiday cheer. Through the sale of Surfing Santa swag, the event has raised over $100,000 for local charities.
F5-2 – FL’s First Christmas. Tallahassee, Florida is best known for three things: 1) state government, 2) thriving universities, and 3) galactic HQ of the FISCE. But our panhandle city also deserves credit for hosting what many historians agree was the first Christmas celebration held in America. Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto embarked from Cuba in 1539, landed in Tampa Bay and eventually headed north. Around October of that year, his group set up winter camp in the Apalachee town of Anhaica located in the area that would become downtown Tallahassee. It’s believed there were minimal festivities involved and that the occasion was marked with a small and somber Christmas mass. However, it’s likely those present enjoyed a large feast consisting mainly of maize and beans (yum!)
