Are you a financial services or insurance meeting planner who has not yet convinced your manager why you should attend the Financial & Insurance Conference Planners Annual Conference November 15–18? It’s not too late—and FICP has done the legwork for you, with templates and talking points that clearly explain the bottom-line value of attending.

Go to the FICP Web site, and click on the link to the 2009 FICP Annual Conference on the right side of the page. Under “Information,” click “Business Case to Attend.” You’ll find four documents to download, customize, and present to your management: two memos with conference stats, a worksheet for outlining your conference goals, and a list of talking points that articulate the key benefits of attending.

The memos break down conference costs including registration ($399 for members and $499 for nonmembers, including meals); airfare (there are many options for travel to Toronto: FICP offers a five percent discount on American Airlines, and you can also fly into a city center airport or to Albany, N.Y.); hotel (US$165 at the host hotel, The Sheraton Centre Toronto); and a line for the total estimated investment. The memo templates also say that after returning from Toronto, you will create a report that summarizes the major takeaways and action items for each of the sessions you attended during the conference.

The documents can easily be customized to fit most effectively within your corporate culture. For example, you can integrate into your memo and/or face-to-face conversation the most compelling of the 25 talking points that you think will resonate with your boss. The talking points are organized in four sections: key benefits of attendance, the overall educational focus; info about specific breakouts on strategic meetings management; and tips on what you can do to extend the conference return on investment when you’re back in the office.

And don’t forget that the conference headliner is well-known financial-industry observer and journalist Geoff Colvin of Fortune magazine, who will share advice from business leaders about seizing opportunities in a downturn.

The conference will have more than 30 hot-topic breakout sessions organized in six tracks.