Eligibility Requirements

Membership Eligibility - Individuals

FICP membership is available to individual meetings professionals who are employed by an insurance or financial services firm as described below.

Company Definitions

Insurance Company: An organization that manufactures, distributes or manages insurance or other indemnity products that include:

• Insurance brokerages
• Property and casualty insurance 
• Health and medical insurance 
• Life and accident insurance 
• Reinsurance [and administration]
• Annuity 
• Independent marketing organizations
• Risk management consulting
• Underwriting variable, deferred or fixed rate deferred annuities
• Underwriting individual whole life, group life, term or universal life policies

Financial Company: An organization or subsidiary primarily engaged in, or facilitating, financial transactions or money management, and encompass raising funds by taking deposits, issuing securities or incurring liabilities. These companies may include:

• Accounting firms
• Banks, including national and state commercial & investment banks, savings banks and credit unions
• Brokerage firms
• Credit card issuers
• Financial advisor firms
• Investment advisors
• Loan and mortgage brokerages
• Mutual fund firms
• Portfolio management
• Sales financing
• Wealth & asset management firms

Individual Definitions

Financial and Insurance Meetings Professional: A professional employed by a financial/insurance company in a meeting, conference, event planning and/or marketing function. 

The employee’s role may be defined as either:

• Core – primarily involved in the coordination, planning or oversight of meetings, conferences or events; or
• Non-Core – directly supervises or provides support to individuals whose core function is coordination, planning or oversight of meetings, conferences or events

The employee’s financial/insurance company must meet the category definition above for:

• Financial
• Insurance

Association Meetings Professional: Professionals employed in a meeting, conference and/or event planning capacity for related associations are eligible for membership in FICP. The association must be a bona fide 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization that represents or services the financial and insurance industry per the category definition for:

• Financial
• Insurance

Independent Meetings Professional: An independent meetings professional who works for himself/herself and is under annual or continuous contract to perform meeting planning functions with at least one eligible financial/insurance company or related association.

A meetings professional operating as an independent contractor must show proof of the independent contractor relationship by submitting a letter (on company letterhead) or email (from a company domain), signed by or from an authorized company representative, that validates the individual is under annual or continuous contract in a meeting, conference and/or event planning capacity for that company. Such correspondence will be maintained in said person’s membership record.

An independent contractor serving more than one financial and/or insurance company must identify with one of the companies and submit said letter or email from that company, which will be retained within the membership record.

It is the responsibility of the independent contractor to inform FICP of any changes to their membership status, especially if their relationship with the company on record changes. FICP reserves the right to request demonstration of membership eligibility at any time.

Any outsourced agent or subcontractor of an independent meetings professional must meet the same membership eligibility criteria as the independent contractor.

Independent contractors are prohibited from soliciting business from FICP meetings professional members.

Meeting professionals who work for third-party planning companies are not eligible to be FICP members.

Complete the Meetings Professional Member Application to be considered for FICP membership.

Please note: The membership definitions were modernized and clarified in 2019 by a Board-appointed task force, with the Independent Meetings Professional definition revised in December 2022. These definitions apply for all those seeking to join FICP or renew membership moving forward.

Membership Eligibility – Corporate Incentive Program

FICP offers a flat-rate membership option for companies with larger meeting planning teams. Known as the Corporate Incentive Program, companies pay $2,750 USD yearly to enroll their team of up to 25 individuals.* This is a deal for companies with 8 or more individuals interested in an FICP membership. Contact info@ficpnet.com to enroll your team in the Corporate Incentive Program.

Why Corporate Incentive?

The Corporate Incentive Program offers flexibility with your roster, simple invoicing, and an investment in your team’s professional development.

*For teams with more than 25 members, the rate will increase incrementally by $110 per person.

Honorary Membership

Any individual who has been an FICP meetings professional member for 15 consecutive years and is permanently retired. To be considered for honorary membership, submit this application to membership@ficpnet.com. The request will be reviewed by FICP; applicants will be notified within 10 business days.

Honorary members do not pay membership dues, do not have voting rights, and must pay the member rate for any association service or to attend an FICP event.

The Board may develop additional criteria and shall have discretion to remove an Honorary Member at any time.

For more information, or if you have questions, please email membership@ficpnet.com or call (312) 245-1023.