About 40 members of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors visited state legislators in Harrisburg, Pa., Oct. 6, delivering a message of cooperation to politicians embroiled then in the debate over the state’s budget.

The annual Day on the Hill gives NAIFA members from all over the state the chance to meet with their district legislators or staff members.

“We are not asking for anything in particular,” Matt Steck, a NAIFA-PA lobbyist with Greenlee Partners, told attendees before they set out in small groups of two to four members. “The message is a good one. You are not beating them up on the budget.”

Steck warned members that the state legislators have been battling over the budget and may have welcomed the distraction offered by NAIFA’s agenda.

Where in the past, the group asked legislators to approve or kill bills of interest, this year’s list of concerns were minimal.

Many discussions focused more on how General Assembly members can call on NAIFA for expertise on insurance and financial service matters.

“Our message is that we want to be a resource to you,” David Barrist, president of the Greater Philadelphia chapter of NAIFA, told Rep. Michael F. Gerber, a Democrat serving Montgomery County, Pa.

“We like things the way they are, and we want to continue to provide people with the products we offer,” added Barbara Gelber, a NAIFA-GP member from Brokerage Concepts Inc. “We don’t want explain to them that what we promised has changed because of what happens here.”

Among the concerns Steck suggested members might address with the legislators they meet were a collection of bills seeking to tighten regulations for insurance fraud prevention and detection, an insurance bad-faith bill seeking to require juries to hear all cases, a bill that would add new requirements for producers handling annuities, and two budget bills regarding a tax on managed care organizations and a capital stock and franchise tax.

View photos from NAIFA-PA Day on the Hill.