While there is a social aspect to our group – we have drinks and dinner when we meet – this is a group of highly skilled insurance professionals who grapple with industry problems that can include new regulations and laws, new products and programs, and new ways of approaching solutions that we can share amongst ourselves.

Part of our name, study group, reflects the seriousness we take in approaching our professional lives. We are all high achievers – many with Ivy League undergraduate degrees and law degrees from prestigious institutions – and we prepare for our work lives in a similar manner to how we would prepare to achieve as students. In fact, we are, in a sense, lifetime scholars in that we have never stopped applying the good habits we had in our formative years to our professional achievement.

Each of the YCISG meetings is led by either a member or a guest who is a subject-matter expert. While the group comes together to learn, all members are expected to be prepared on the topic and to bring their sharpest questions to the table. The presenter is expected to showcase their expert knowledge on a topic by introducing original thinking and granular points, and by being able to answer the questions that are asked on this topic. Presenters frequently use PowerPoint presentations to provide the group with examples, and these may be made available to members through this website.

The COVID era presented the YCISG with a tremendous opportunity: We could expand beyond New York City. Before COVID, we had grown comfortable in being a local group that would meet at the Yale Club. COVID, however, led us to rethink our parochial perspective and to grow beyond the New York Metropolitan Area. During COVID, we continued to meet using videoconferencing software. We realized how comfortable our members, by and large, were in using this technological solution, and thus we embarked on a new phase of our journey.

Today, we continue to meet at The Yale Club, while also using videoconferencing so that our members may join from outside New York City. This expansion of our terrain has provided us with a vision to grow our group beyond perhaps three dozen core members and to allow others in markets across the United States to participate.

Joining the YCISG is not a matter of simply submitting a membership application and sending a check. If you are interested in becoming a member, you will have to research our membership, get in touch with someone who will determine if you are a good fit for our group, and that person will have to sponsor your membership. The YCISG has operated this way throughout the years, and it is our intention to protect our high standards by continuing to hold accountable our members who bring a new candidate forward.

As thought leaders in the life insurance industry, our standards are understandably high. The perspectives we develop at YCISG meetings will translate into actions taken by insurance producers in how they approach new regulations, new tax laws, and new state requirements. We pursue best practices with a special vigor because we are not the average life insurance producers: members of the YCISG are a highly specialized group who deal with an exclusive clientele. The exposure that our clients have to tax, wealth transfer and other liabilities is far beyond what an upper-middle-class family will experience. However, the effect that we can have on determining best practices throughout the industry can be enormous, and this is a weighty responsibility for any group.

Our members come from a variety of backgrounds, including the legal profession. Our firms tend to be smaller as our business lends itself to being more boutique in nature, which is preferred by our exclusive clientele.

The YCISG is looking forward to bringing its values, ethics, and insight to the next generation of leading life insurance producers who serve the HNW classes. We encourage people in the industry to contact us to learn more about us, what we do, and the topics we are exploring.