Registration for the 2019 PLUS Conference is officially open, and we wanted to sit down and talk to the very first person who registered: John Colis. John has attended over 20 PLUS Conferences throughout the years, and shared his thoughts on the benefits of the conference and what he’s looking forward to this year.
Thank you so much to John for participating in this interview! We’re looking forward to the Conference this November. For more information about this year’s PLUS Conference, visit the Conference website here.
What has kept you coming back to the PLUS Conference?
Professional liability is a big part of what we do. We’re in the program business, and a bunch of our operations focus on professional liability, as has been the case for many, many years. We’re very much in that space and PLUS is a huge benefit for us in many different ways.
First of all, it’s a fantastic place for networking, so we see and connect with people that we do business with and want to do business with at the PLUS Conference. Networking and connecting with business partners or potential partners is huge for us.
I would say secondly, different people in our organization connect to the educational piece of it. We’re keeping our skill set up. Another good part of PLUS is our RPLU designees, and that’s lovely for our people to be able to achieve that. It’s just a great organization.
Is there anything specific that you’re looking forward to about this year’s conference?
I wouldn’t say anything specifically, or at least I haven’t started thinking about it at this point. We really have never had a PLUS Conference that hasn’t been beneficial for all the reasons I mentioned before, and I expect this [Conference] to be a very much the same in terms of benefit.
Do you have a favorite experience or experiences that you’ve had at past conferences?
I think for us, as we’ve rolled out new programs and new operations, it’s always lovely to be at the first PLUS Conference after that happens. It’s a great place to introduce what we’re doing, so that’s always a special moment for me. As we’ve expanded, our business has been a vehicle for announcing and presenting it to the marketplace. I think that is one of the things I enjoy the most about PLUS.
What would you say to someone who’s on the fence about registering for the conference?
I would say if you want to be in the professional liability business in a professional way—no pun intended—and you’re not a member of PLUS, I don’t think you’re really taking your profession seriously. This is the place you’ve got to be. You’ve got to be part of this community if you really want to be in that business. If you’re in the business in a sideline way, that’s fine, but if you really want to be in it and you’re not part of PLUS, it doesn’t make sense.
How has attending the PLUS conference benefited your career?
It’s been a great benefit for us. As I mentioned, I’ll just expand on it briefly: it’s a natural marketplace. We have started, connected with, and enhanced relationships throughout the years of PLUS that presumably wouldn’t have existed in the same way or even at all had we not had the organization. So that’s a big benefit to us.
There’s no question. It’s a marketplace. If you’re in business, you’ve got to be in a marketplace and [the PLUS Conference] is a natural marketplace.
John Colis was born and raised in the Chicago area. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Northwestern University and his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. His graduate studies were concentrated in the fields of finance and accounting.
John is the President and CEO of Euclid Insurance Services, Inc., a holding company for specialty program administrators, a company he owns with his family. He is a board member of Oxford Bank and Trust, a community bank in the Chicago area, also a family business. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and a board member of the Target Market Association of Program Administrators.
John is married to Carrie, has two children, and lives in Glenview, Illinois.
