Erik Askelsen0:09
I think the great thing about the GIS is it's broad, right? It's not intended to address a very specific concern or a very specific industry or a very specific function. It's broad. So again, there's something there for everybody. And even if it's not your particular line, you can learn from what somebody else is doing and apply it. So one of the things I love about the GIS is its breadth. The second great thing for us is it's in Des Moines, right? And that's pretty nice. There are not many symposiums, meetings, seminars this size that are here. So I think it's a great conference, a great way to learn and a great way to meet people. I'm even surprised sometimes at how many insurance companies we have here, right? When I start looking at them and start writing some of them down, the list just keeps going and going and going. And then you move over—I start with life insurance, that's easier for me—but then you go to some of the property and casualty insurers, and then you go to some of the annuity companies, and then the health. I mean, there's a big list. So it's pretty neat to see that many different organizations take some time away from their day to join up at the GIS.
There's going to be a regulator training session as part of this that Commissioner Elmon organized. It's going to be a program for regulators only. They're going to come in on Monday before the symposium, stay through the week, and they're going to be going through a regulator-only training on big data, because it's an important topic. A lot of regulators are trying to understand what companies are doing in that area. So we're hoping and expecting that there'll be a lot of regulators at this event, because they're going to be attending the GIS in connection with the training session.
Personally, I'm really excited about Senator Grassley. We've got him lined up to come and speak on the final day of the symposium. He's a really senior leader in Congress, he's the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. I actually heard him say that it's the quality of life committee, which I thought was pretty funny. Given the breadth of what the committee handles, it makes sense. There's tax reform issues, but it's got health care. We were talking about how interesting Washington is right now. The fact that we're going to have Senator Grassley here speaking, I think will be of interest to a lot of people attending the conference.
A couple other names that come to mind are David Levinson from LIMRA, Susie Neely from I'm a CLI, and Jonathan Dixon from the IAIS. Those are some pretty big positions out in the industry, and they're coming in the morning to let us know what's going on in each respective unit. I think those are going to be fascinating topics to sit and listen to. Jonathan Dixon, he's with IAIS, so this is a global insurance symposium. The IAIS is the international standard setter. If you're not paying attention to what's going on there and you've got a US insurance business, you probably know what's going on. So that'll be interesting. We've got some big names and I'm excited about that. The panels are going to be great. I think it's been a good time.
