The D&O Diary was on assignment Down Under last week, visiting the beautiful country of Australia during the late Southern Hemisphere winter. It was great to be able to return to one of my favorite places to visit.

The primary purpose of my Australia visit was to participate as a panelist and speaker at this year’s annual National Conference of the Australasian Professional Indemnity Group, in Sydney. It was my honor and privilege to be a part of this excellent event again. I would like to thank the event planning committee and the APIG leadership for inviting me back for this year’s conference, which was, as always, well-organized and well-attended. I have to say: what a great bunch of people there are in the Australian management and professional liability insurance community. I enjoyed myself immensely being a part of this event again.

My busy day at this year’s conference got off to an early start with a pre-Conference panel on “Building Skills that Outlast the Market Cycle.” It was a lively and enjoyable session, with (from left to right): Kevin Bates of Swiss Re; Mary-Catherine Hamill of Aon; and Maddie Zali, of Probitas, who moderated the session.
I also delivered a Keynote Address, on the topic “Hot Topics in D&O.” As I have said many times, I always feel that if am having fun speaking to an audience, it must be going well, and I had a lot of fun delivering this address. I should probably add that after my address, which sounded many themes reflecting the current claims environment in the U.S., I had many sidebar conversations about the state of politics in the U.S.
This is a picture with Scott Butcher of Swiss Re. Scott introduced me for my keynote address. I should add here that my participation in this year’s conference was sponsored by Swiss Re. I am very grateful to all my friends at Swiss Re for making it possible for me to participate in this year’s conference.
Here’s a picture with Jason Symons of the Mills Oakley law firm. Jason was my primary APIG contact for planning and logistical purposes, and he also helped me by providing comments for my keynote address. I want to thank Jason for all of his help, and also for inviting me to be a part of the final panel of the day, which was a light-hearted session where I and my fellow panelists were asked a series of amusing questions. It was all great fun.
One of the best parts of the annual APIG Conference is the Gala Dinner, which caps off the conference day. I was fortunate to sit at table at the Gala Dinner with, among others, Crystal Sanders of the Sparke Helmore law firm, and Aimee Pozoglou of ProRisk. Crystal is on the National Conference Organizing Committee and Aimee is the Chair of the Committee. They and their fellow committee members deserve hearty congratulations for a job well done in organizing and planning this year’s Conference.

There are many more pictures from the Conference at the end of this post.

Queensland: While we were in Australia, my wife and also had a chance to see a little more of the country. Taking advantage of the long Labor Day weekend back in the U.S., we scheduled some time before the Conference to explore some of Australia. On the advice of Australian friends, after arriving in Sydney, we flew north to Queensland, the Australian state that is basically the country’s upper right-hand corner. We took a three hour flight from Sydney to Cairns (pronounced “Cans” — sort of). From there we took an Uber to the North (that is, even closer to the equator), to see some of the oceanside towns along Australia’s coral coast.

The first stop in our visit to Queensland was in the lovely resort town of Palm Cove. Palm Cove has the flora of Florida and the cool vibe of, say, Carmel, in California. We were fortunate that during our visit to Palm Cove (and in fact throughout our visit) the weather was absolutely fantastic — daytime highs in the lower 80s, daytime lows in the lower 70s. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach and a five-minute walk into the village.

Here’s a view of the beach near our hotel in Palm Cove. I don’t think I need to add that it was absolutely beautiful there.
One of the several very cool things we did while in Palm Cove was to take a guided kayak tour to see sea turtles. We had a great tour guide and we did manage to see a few turtles, although over all the turtles proved to be pretty elusive. We still managed to have a great day. Did I mention that the weather was fantastic? You can see the coastal mountains in the background of this picture.
The beach at Palm Cove is beautiful, but after a little data-gathering (along the lines of the information in this sign), we decided not to actually go swimming in the Ocean.
We saw this Oystercatcher in a mangrove thicket along the shoreline of one of the offshore islands, during our kayak tour.
Look closely, there’s a crab hiding in this picture

Another very cool thing we did while in Palm Cove was to take a bicycle ride along the coastal bike path, to Trinity Beach, where we had a pleasant lunch before making a leisurely return ride back to Palm Cove, about 12 miles roundtrip. Absolutely perfect day for a seaside bike ride.

This is Trinity Beach, looking North (back toward Palm Cove).
We also took a hike along the Wangetti Trail, in the Macalister Range National Park. The trailhead was just a five-minute walk from our hotel.
The trail leads up into the Macalister Range mountains, and affords really spectacular views back towards the coastline. The mountains are within the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area.

From Palm Cove, we travelled even further North in Queensland, to Port Douglas. (Just a note for anyone interested, we were able to do all of our travel within Queensland via Uber. It worked out great). Port Douglas is at about 16 degrees Southern Latitude, about the same latitude south of the equator that Guatemala and Belize are to the north of the equator. Here’s a view from Flagstaff Hill in Port Douglas, looking South to Four Mile Beach. The beach in Port Douglas might be even nicer than the beach in Palm Cove.

Our primary purpose in traveling to Port Douglas was to have an opportunity to see the Great Barrier Reef. We took a tour boat about 45 miles off the coast from Port Douglas, to the outer edge of the Reef. You can kind of see the Reef in this picture — the Reef is the darker area, with the lighter area beyond showing shallower waters. The white areas on the far side of the scene are waves crashing into the Reef from the deeper ocean.
Here I am, just about ready to go snorkeling. We paid extra to take a guided snorkeling tour with a marine biologist. The lycra cover-up is for protection against both the sun and stinging jellyfish. (I don’t think there actually were any jellyfish around, it wasn’t the season for that, but I was happy to have the protection just the same).
This a view of the reef seen from the below decks viewing portal on the tour boat. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take any underwater pictures, which is absolutely too bad. (This picture is about one ten-thousandths of the experience of seeing the Reef.) The Reef was amazingly beautiful. Swimming in the waters at the Reef is like being in a living kaleidoscope beneath the sea. The experience is both surreal and breathtaking—an explosion of color, movement, and life that feels almost otherworldly. Among other things, we saw a giant green sea turtle, several monstrously big clams, as well as clownfish, parrotfish, butterfly fish, and hundreds of other kinds of fish whose names I don’t even know. It was just amazing. I can’t possibly recommend the experience highly enough.
Here’s the snorkeling scene at the side of the pontoon platform at which the tour boat docked. The snorkeling was a great part of the whole experience.

One of the hard things about writing this blog post is I took so many great pictures. At the end of this post I included a small sample of other pictures from our visit to Australia.

More Pictures of the APIG Conference:

With Tiffany Rasul of AXA XL and Tim Chan of Norton Rose Fulbright.

With Katie Voight of AXA XL

With Persia Navidi of AON. Some of you may recognize Persia’s name as an occasional contributor to The D&O Diary.

With Keith Bethlehem and Michael Russell of the Colin Biggers & Paisley law firm. I met Keith and Michael at the PLUS D&O Symposium in New York this past March. I should add that Keith was absolutely instrumental in helping my wife and I plan our visit to Queensland. Our thanks to Keith for enabling us to have a great visit to the Coral Coast. Keith and Michael and their wives also hosted me and my wife for dinner on the evening before the Conference, which was a really pleasant evening, my thanks to them for their hospitality.

With Raj Hothi and Alison Percival of Munich Re

With Leia de Closey of AXA XL

With Daisy Galvin and James Vlasveld of Markel International

With Grace Mason of AIG.

I took many, many more pictures during the Conference and at the Gala Dinner. I wish I could print them all, but there are just too many. My apologies to those whose pictures I was not able to include here. To everyone, I enjoyed having the chance to meet you and to talk to you, and I hope to see you in Australia again soon.

More Pictures from Australia

Upon our arrival in Australia, and before we headed up to Queensland, we spend a jet-lag recovery day in Bondi (pronounced “BON-dye”). We enjoyed a beautiful day there. The daytime high was in the lower 70s. Most of the time we were in Australia, it was hard to tell that it was in fact still Southern Hemisphere winter there. About the only sign was the it got dark very early (compared to back home). It was dark every evening by 5:30, which felt very strange every time it happened.
One of the things we did in Bondi was to take the Bondi to Coogee (pronounced “COULD-gee,” sort of) coastal walk. We had a lovely lunch in Coogee, and then walked back. It is a little less than eight miles roundtrip. This is a picture of the Gordans Bay, which is near the Coogee end of the walk.
After we returned to Sydney from Queensland, we had an afternoon before the Conference started, so we took the ferry from Circular Quay in central Sydney to Manly Beach, and then we went for a hike in the Sydney Harbour National Park. Here’s a view back to Sydney from a hilltop in the park. The trees and bushes are still in their winter dormancy.
An Eastern Water Dragon, seen on a pathway in the Sydney Harbour National Park.
A view of the Harbour Bridge and of Sydney Harbour viewed from one of the tall office buildings in the downtown area near Circular Quay.
The Sydney Opera House, viewed from the returning Manly Ferry as it heads toward Circular Quay.
On Friday evening, we had a bonus experience. We were able to attend the Sydney Symphony concert, in the Opera House concert hall, as guests of APIG. It was a wonderful concert, capped by a terrific performance by the Australian pianist Andrea Lam. It was also great to finally see the inside of Sydney’s beautiful Opera House. Our thanks to APIG for affording us the opportunity to see the concert.