I met Mr. Kitt in the parking lot this morning, at about 7:30 a.m. He had left Manitoulin Island at about midnight on the previous night and, after a snooze at the side of the road, he arrived on our doorstep at about 6:00 a.m. He had driven for five hours to be in time for the Early Bird insurance deadline. We could have handled his and his wife’s insurance by phone, but he wanted to make sure that everything was done properly.

click on the image to zoom

Fortunately, there are some very keen people at Medipac and they often come in to work early. We sat down and had a quiet coffee while the policies were being issued by our“early bird”, “Early Bird” staff. This was the beginning of a very,very busy last day.

When we finally tallied up the Early Bird policies, we found that we had written approximately 2,500 more policies than in the previous year. That is an incredible number and, although we expected to attract more clients this season,this was unexpected. Thank you for your strong support.

The Medipac Main Season plan is just being finalized and we are very excited about the final result. There are many, many rate changes; these include rate increases of up to 11% and decreases of as much as 24%. Depending on your rate category, you will either be very happy that you bought Early Bird, due to the price increases, or you will be very happy because we are going to send you a cheque underthe Medipac Double Guarantee.

More good news is found in the strong value of the Canadian dollar. We expect it to remain in the $0.90 to $0.92 area for the next several months, and perhaps longer. My personal guess is that we will see close to parity with the U.S. dollar within the next few years. With the dollar’sstrength, we have decided to implement a 5% discount on our Main Season rates until January 7, 2007. The rates you will see in the new Medipac Travel Insurance Guide, in
mid-September, will actually be 5% higher than the base rate which you will pay. You will, of course, still qualify foradditional Loyalty Credits and Claim-Free Discounts.

The Underwritten Plan, which is our special quotation program for those who do not qualify, or who have preexisting condition issues, has undergone some aggressive changes. We have lowered our rate charts and have opened the plan to even more people. Although it is only required for a very small percentage of our clients, itserves many snowbirds quite well.

As Mr. Kitt was leaving, he invited me to play golf with him in Florida, later this year. We, at Medipac, deal with wonderful snowbirds every day. We have the bestjobs in the world.