after more than 50 years, an International Congress of Life, Health and Disability Assurance Medicine is taking place again in Italy under the Auspices of the President of the Republic.

On behalf of the ICLAM Bureau and of AIMAV, I have the pleasure and the honour of warmly welcome you in the town of Venice, where the 21st ICLAM Congress will take place from 18th to 21st April 2004.

The scientific programme set up by the Organizing Committee of this Congress mainly focuses on the medical-insurance side of each topic under discussion, so as to be interesting and useful not only for physicians, but also for all those people (underwriters, managers and directors of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies, actuaries, etc.) who attend the Iclam Congresses by tradition.

As a consequence, several Speakers have been deliberately chosen among those people who daily work in the medical-insurance field, and, in any case, it has been recommended that all the Speakers devote a considerable part of their papers to the impact on morbility and mortality of the pathology under examination.

Venice has been chosen both due to its strategic position as a traditional “hinge” between West and East, and to the splendour of its architecture and history, making this town unique in the world.

I wish you all can come back to your Countries bringing with you the memory of a scientifically profitable event for your knowledge, and of a socially unforgettable experience for the beauty of the places in which such event took place.

Dr Arnaldo Capurro

Chairman

ICLAM 2004 Organizing Committee