RISK PAC model intended for Capitol Hill, not for Parliament Hill: RIMS

RISK PAC, a political action committee in the United States sponsored by the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS), does not appear to be heading to Canada.

“At the current time, we don’t have any intention to do something similar in Canada, but we have brought our Canadian members to our recent ‘RIMS on the Hill’ event to look at that model [of political lobbying in the United States],” RIMS executive director Mary Roth said at a press conference during the 2012 RIMS Annual Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia on Apr. 17. “We’re trying to find the right model for implementing regulation [affecting risk management practices] in Canada, but right now we do not have one.”

RIMS is interested in some kind of tool to give risk managers in Canada a political voice and influence provincial politicians in particular. But it remains up in the air just what form that kind of lobby movement might take.

“As we move forward with RISK PAC, those Canadian members have been there along with us, so I think that gives them the opportunity to review the applicability [of the model to Canada],” said RIMS president Deborah Luthi.

RISK PAC is a “separate, segregated fund,” a political action committee, registered with the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C.

Currently funded at $28,000, RISK PAC is intended to provide RIMS members a legal and effective way to support the election of candidates for the U.S. House and Senate who share RIMS views on public policy affecting the practices of risk management.

There has been discussion within RIMS about whether a parallel kind of lobby structure might be established in Canada. For now, said Dan Kugler, board liaison to the RIMS external affairs committee, Canadian RIMS members are observing the impact RISK PAC is making in the U.S. political environment.

“Whatever operation we put into Canada, we have to see how successful we can be here on Capitol Hill first, ” said Kugler.