The COVID-19 crisis took its toll on IUMI’s traditional plan of our Technical Committee members gathering in Hamburg for the annual Spring Meeting. This year the Executive Committee along with the Secretariat took the difficult decision to cancel the conference which usually has over 120 marine underwriters from over 20 countries in attendance coming together to discuss key issues for their lines of business and to plan the workshops for the annual conference.

Instead our committees quickly adjusted and moved their meetings online. Despite the very early or very late hours, our members got together in the virtual arena with nearly universally positive feedback. Of course, the occasional hiccup with the webcam or some peculiar background noise occurred during the various meetings but overall the goals of the committees were achieved and the agendas worked through efficiently.

Even though this was not anticipated the online version of the Hamburg Meeting was a success.