IBANY Will Seek Expansion Of Membership Upstate And In Contiguous N.Y.C. Counties In 1992-1993.

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The Insurance Brokers Association of New York State will really make an effort this coming administrative year to make the membership fill the title.

James A. Fenniman. president of Richards & Fenniman Inc., who succeeded to the post of president of the brokers' association at its recent annual meeting, pledged strong efforts to fill out membership in the upstate and outer Metro-New York areas. He called this growth one of his "goals"

Fenniman, who look over the presidential post from Norman Barham, of Johnson & Higgins, said that IBANY is targeting Syracuse and other prominent insurance centers for an anchor member upstate. He said also that the association will reach into lower Westchester. Long Island, eastern New Jersey and southern Connecticut "to develop local anchors for New York licensees based there." Fenniman said this would be an accomplishment to continuing the growth in association membership.

Pointing out that shrinking profit margins have raised the possibility among brokers to follow their clients and the commercial carriers in a move out of New York to less expensive locations. But he prefaced that by urging members to continue to work with the economic development people in New York to keep the state as the insurance capital it is now.

Fenniman also put high on his list of priorities fur IBANY, the development of more support of the association's "outstanding seminars on emerging issues." He promised that forthcoming seminars would re-examine the Americans With Disabilities Act, which has a heavy impact on the insurance business.

In his message covering the 1991-1992 administrative year which he guided as president. Barham pointed to the major changes which the industry has been facing in the past two decades. He said the days of the 15 percent across-the-board commissions and deals drawn up on cocktail napkins are gone and have...