It's that time of the year again, so despite our number one resolution of last year (never to bother to make one in the future), here we go again. But since New Year's resolutions have become a kind of season joke for most people, we've decided to go one better and commit ours to the indelible permanence of the printed page.

What precipitated this rash commitment was our scrutiny of this month's Biennial AF Leasing Rental Survey. In that section of the survey's questionnaire that asked the respondents for their opinion as to the biggest challenge facing our industry today, again and again the word INSURANCE sprang into focus. In fact, in 22 percent of the replies, the word (scrawled in big, bold letters and surrounded by exclamation points) literally jumped off the page, demanding attention.

Checking back to our previous 1968 survey, we discovered that the problem is no Johnnie-Come-Lately to the leasing and rental field. Impossible as it seems now, considering how massive insurance problems have grown over the past two years, it was mentioned as the number one challenge/problem by a whopping 34 percent of those previous respondents.

Checking further, we attempted to discover what AF had done over the past two years to shed some light on this knotty subject. Mea Culpa! What we found was precious little.

Hence, the breaking of our previous vows, and the publication of a New Year's Resolution which we will try to live up to for the forthcoming year. Be it known, therefore, to all good men that during the forthcoming year of 1971, Automotive Fleetwill endeavor with all its energy and resources to investigate the insurance problems that now plague our industry in the lease and rental fields.

We plan to instrument our resolve in a number of ways. First we are planning a two-pronged investigation into the problem with a number of the nation's largest insurance companies. Not only do we intend to discover what the problems are for insurance with regard to lease and rental cars, we hope to discover what the solutions are to the problems and how they can best be instrumented by our readers. In addition, we shall be providing in-depth coverage of scheduled insurance seminars that will be covering the subject of insurance in forthcoming industry association conferences.

One such target discussion will be offered at the annual AALA meeting in San Diego early next month. A large insurance agency has been attempting for some time to provide AALA members with a group blanket policy which will cover all the association's members. Hopefully, this year's meeting will provide the fruit of that agency's investigations.

Later, also in February, CATRALA will feature a workshop session titled "The insurance Crisis" at their annual meeting in Miami. And AF will be on hand to report on what takes place there.

Finally, we are looking to our readers for help both in researching and providing answers on the subject of insurance. So, if any of you out there have any specific questions you'd like covered on the topic, or if you've got any of the answers, please don't hesitate to contact yours truly,