TSLA President Says Sharing Knowledge Is Just One of Many Membership Perks

Lana Parks says her managing general agency, The Parks Group, bought a new computer system after a fellow member of the Texas Surplus Lines Association shared with her their experience and knowledge of the system. That’s one of the benefits of belonging to TSLA, says Parks, who’s in the middle of her term as the association’s president.

“We’re competitors,” Parks says, but members make the most of the opportunities to get to know each other and develop relationships. “We share knowledge as a professional organization and keep abreast of what’s happening legislatively.”

When Parks was sworn in as president of the organization in November 2007, she told attendees at TSLA’s annual meeting in Austin that she hopes when she retires “the insurance industry will be better when I leave than when I arrived.” She reminded the audience of her peers that the decisions they make and the issues they “lobby on will no doubt impact us and our families for years to come. We must think boldly about how we can make Texas a better state and about how we can have the drive to make sure we can achieve those goals. …

“We must continue to strengthen our relationships with our regulators, legislators, other professional organizations, our companies and our friends on the retail side. Each group plays an integral part in our organization and our success and our future.”

While 2008 is not a legislative year in Texas, the group nevertheless has continued to monitor both state and federal legislative issues that are important to the industry, such as the interstate compact for licensing of surplus lines entities. Among the issues the association will be watching during the Texas legislative session that begins in 2009 is the Texas Franchise Business Tax that was approved last session, Parks said. “We’ve heard there’s a possibility it could be brought up again in the legislature. TSLA will be watching that, as it affects our members. Also the Texas Windstorm Association issues. We will watch that and continue to do what we need to do to make sure our businesses and our homes are protected.”

New initiatives that TSLA has inaugurated during Parks’ term as president include efforts to expand the “Under 40” group and develop younger talent, an outreach program aimed at encouraging inactive members to become more involved and a process for examining the association to determine its strengths and weaknesses.

While TSLA holds its annual meeting in Austin in November each year, the group generally takes its mid-year convention, which Parks says is a more family-oriented event, to more exotic locations. The 2008 meeting is in Santa Barbara, Calif., July 20 – 23. (See sidebar.) Parks says attendance is up – they expect a record crowd – and that there are “quite a few first-timers coming to the mid-year meeting.”

Getting Into the Business

Parks entered the insurance business at an early age – she was 14. As she explained at the November 2007 meeting, “it was the week before Christmas and I had the dubious task of picking up the phone and calling my father to tell him that I had just totaled my mom’s brand new Buick Electra while out Christmas shopping. Since I was only 14 and I didn’t have a driver’s license I had to call him and he had to come pick me up. Believe me it was the longest 10 minute ride of my life.

“In order to repay my debt he made me come to work for him in his insurance agency. When I got to be a senior he was paying me $1.41 an hour.”

Parks says she never thought she’d make a career out of insurance – she majored in social work while at university but couldn’t find a job in that field after graduation. So she became an auto underwriter. After 20 years of service in the retail, wholesale and company sides of the business Parks founded her own firm in 1994.

She describes The Parks Group as a small operation with 10 people. The group has an office Arlington where most of the employees are located, and an office in Austin. The majority of the principals and support staff are women, but Parks says that did not happen by any particular design. “When I went into business I hired a woman I knew, we had worked together at Gainsco,” she says. Then she hired an underwriter she had known for a long time, also a woman.

As a woman in the insurance business, Parks says she doesn’t think she does anything differently than men. “You have to earn your reputation,” Parks said. “You’ve got to do the right thing.” One thing that made a major difference in her career, she said, was achieving her CPCU designation.

The Parks Group writes commercial lines but doesn’t specialize in any particular
program area. “We do business with retail agencies of all sizes, big and small,” Parks said. We don’t care how big they are. We want to be able to develop a relationship with them.”

She also said her firm is interested in bringing young talent into the fold. Her advice to young people interested in insurance? “You need perseverance. Work hard and continue your personal development. Learning is a life-long journey both personally and professionally. You never stop learning.”

An Insurance Sales Job

Parks, a marathon runner, apparently has always had a penchant for speed. She told the audience at her November inaugural speech that while in college she experienced her first insurance sales job after she had racked up eight speeding tickets in three months. She somehow had “failed” to tell her parents about them, and when their insurance company – Travelers – decided to non-renew the family’s auto policy, Parks said she got a call from her father. He persuaded her in no uncertain terms to phone the underwriter and tell him that she was a “reformed driver.” And she did.

“I called the underwriter and told him everything he wanted to hear,” she said. “That was back in the day when you could actually pick up the phone and reach an underwriter on the first try. So it was that Travelers did agree to renew our coverage and I agreed to take the lead out.”

Asked whether there was anything about herself that those who know her would be surprised to learn, Parks declined to say. However, for those who would like to dig a little deeper, they might want to ask her about a red and white Mustang, CB radios and “Peppermint Patty.”

Topics Texas