Government policies may seem removed from daily life, but they significantly impact commercial and personal interests. For example, cutbacks in building regulations can lead to more instances of unsafe structures, resulting in increased insurance claims. To make sound decisions for your insurance agency, you should understand how public officials can best support their constituencies. With this knowledge, you can advocate for yourself, your industry, and your clients.

Make It Easy for Constituents To Contact Public Officials

Communication plays a massive role in how to avoid failing consultants. Lawmakers can’t act in their constituents’ best interests if they don’t know what their constituency wants. Therefore, it’s essential to establish official communication channels between lawmakers and the people they represent.

Fortunately, the internet has made this significantly easier. Anyone with online access can send their representative an email expressing their opinions. Agencies also open policy changes to public discourse before implementation to gauge their popularity.

Businesses can also reach out to public officials through the following avenues:

• Calling federal or local government offices
• Scheduling a meeting to speak with officials or staff in-person or via virtual conference
• Mailing a letter to government offices

Encourage Diverse Solutions to Complex Problems

While governments have considerable power in regulated industries such as housing, pharmaceuticals, and banking, they can’t solve every problem. Instead, agencies turn to the private sector, which is more innovative due to competition. A combined public and private approach often provides better solutions than the government trying to tackle the issue alone.

Even when agencies don’t directly influence private sector initiatives, they can guide these efforts. For example, governments of all levels offer grants for specific projects that promote the public good, such as providing resources to under-served communities. The monetary incentive prompts competition while supporting useful initiatives.

Public officials can also use feedback from constituents to inform industry regulations. For example, suppose employees in a particular sector complain of dangerous working conditions. In that case, policymakers can improve conditions by writing new laws, increasing funding to oversight agencies, and offering incentives for better business practices. They may consult with the employees, outside experts, and industry leaders to determine the most effective path.

Set Reasonable Expectations of Public Officials

While policymakers have an immense amount of power as a legislative body, there are limitations to what individual officials can do. Going outside their scope as policymakers can expose them to accusations of discrimination, leading to disciplinary action, harm to their reputation, and even public officials liability civil suits. Since even the perception of unjust use of power can prompt an investigation, many agencies maintain public officials liability & employment practices liability insurance.

For constituents, you must understand the services policymakers can offer before making your request. Otherwise, you may get an immediate rejection.

The good news is that public officials have a relatively wide range of ways to help commercial enterprises; you just have to figure out what to ask for. The following are all within lawmakers’ purview:

• Advocate on behalf of a constituent during agencies’ decision-making processes
• Assist with accessing missing federal agency records
• Provide information about who to contact for government contract opportunities

About PGUI

Professional Governmental Underwriters, LLC., is a full-service risk management company dedicated to assisting public, educational and non-profit entities in the management of their professional liability exposures including educators liability insurance. We are dedicated to providing state-of-the-art professional underwriting management and loss control advisory services on behalf of our designated carriers. For more information, call us toll-free at (800) 586-6502.