LAS VEGAS — The first full day of this year’s Vehicle Service Contract Administrators Conference featured an agenda packed with panels and presentations that enthralled the gathered crowd.

The day began on a somber note as James Ganther, an attorney with Mosaic Compliance Services and the event’s emcee, asked the audience to observe a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Ganther then gave a one-hour presentation designed to answer a question that faces every service contract provider at some point: How does one react to a dealership closure in a way that protects their companies and their customers? Dwindling dealer numbers are often spoken of as a recent trend, but Ganther found that, with the exception of a slight uptick in 1951, fewer and fewer stores have remained open since the National Automobile Dealers Association began counting in 1949.

The effects on product providers are profound, Ganther noted. He pointed out that dealer closures create issues relating to unremitted paperwork and unpaid premiums, chargebacks and cancellations; and providers looking for compensation are in line behind bankruptcy claims, criminal sanctions and IRS liens.

Breaking Out the Day

After a networking break, Agent Entrepreneur and P&A magazine publisher Tariq Kamal moderated “Claims, Cost Savings, Methods, Parts and Inspections,” a panel discussion that included input from all three sides of the claim/inspection/parts triangle.

The panelists tackled a wide range of issues, but the focus turned quickly toward inspector certification. The moderator was able to coax Ganther back to the stage, where he previewed the inspector certification module he helped design for the F&I Provider and Administrators Association. Ganther will present the module in full at his Wednesday-morning “FIPAA Update” session.

Next on the agenda was “SaaS or Build: What’s Best for Your Operation?” The panel discussion was a live-and-in-person version of a recent article on the topic penned by Kamal, who served as moderator again. The audience was treated to a lively debate on the benefits of outsourcing key administrative functions or choosing to keep them in-house. Although the participants tackled the issue from differing — and at times, opposing — viewpoints, the conversation remained friendly and constructive.

After lunch, the conference reconvened for “Changing Tech, Changing Coverage: Preparing for New Technologies.” John Kerper of Kerper and Bowron LLC, an expert in the actuarial segment, delivered an in-depth report — and forecast — of how the ever-advancing technology in today’s automobiles will affect the cost of parts and the quality of inspections.

Kamal then called three working agents to the stage for “Agents Speak Out,” a panel discussion designed to confront several of the issues inherent to the dealer/agent/product provider relationship. Topics included training, customer service and the expanding role of the agent at the highest level of the dealerships they serve. But as time wound down, the conversation shifted toward a single, pressing topic: Can an agent serve as a compliance officer for their dealer clients?

Opinions varied among the panelists, but, after being recalled to the stage once more, Ganther made a heartfelt appeal toward the agent community, calling upon them to at least serve as an early warning for dealers who may have strayed outside the lines of their own compliance efforts.

Finally, Gregory Petrowski of GPW and Associates took the stage to deliver “New Developments in Reinsurance,” a comprehensive update that followed a hugely popular session from Agent Summit 2012, where he and United Development Systems’ Randy Crisorio engaged in an agent-oriented discussion on the topic. For the VSCAC crowd, Petrowski focused on recent regulatory and tax-code changes as well as new trends in the structure and administration of reinsurance accounts.

VSCAC 2012 will pick up where it left off Wednesday morning with presentations on international trade, contemporary pricing models, Ganther’s aforementioned FIPAA report and a workshop that will explore how compliance initiatives can propel, rather than slow, F&I product sales.