When the current owners wish to perpetuate the agency without severe financial impact to the new owners, they sometimes attempt to gift, discount or bequeath ownership interest instead of charging full value for the agency’s stock and, thereby causing a taxable event to the existing owners while forcing the new owners to pay for the…
Can an agency that fronts money for an insured cancel the policy when the insured refuses to pay? If you think the answer is “yes,” then you’ll definitely want to read this article!
Mission. Integrity. Ideal. Excalibur. Universal. Enterprise. Great Global. American Excel. Champion. Adjectives for the Virtual University? Nope…names of companies that used to insure millions of individuals, families and businesses. Perhaps you were affected in some way by these or other insolvencies because you were blind sided when they went belly up. There are proactive steps that you…
March is Ethics Awareness Month in the insurance industry. This has become an annual event, sponsored by the Insurance Institute for Applied Ethics and the CPCU Society, and endorsed by a number of industry organizations. In keeping with the spirit, below are some “ethical dilemmas.”
In March 2002, Ethics Awareness Month, we ran a contest with three ethical dilemmas, asking our newsletter readers to respond with their answers. Below is one of those questions, along with many of the responses we received. If you have any thoughts you’d like us to add, email them to [email protected].
Mission. Integrity. Ideal. Excalibur. Universal. Enterprise. Great Global. American Excel. Champion. Adjectives for the Virtual University? Nope…names of companies that used to insure millions of individuals, families and businesses. Perhaps you were affected in some way by these or other insolvencies because you were blind sided when they went belly up. There are proactive steps…
The ACORD certificates of insurance indicate that the issuing insurer will “endeavor to” provide notice of cancellation to the certificate holder. Typically, nothing in the policy requires this and many of your insurers say they do not even want copies of certificates, much less plan to provide notice. Is telling the certificate holder that the…
An agent discovers that his insured, a childcare center, has been underpaying her premium for at least five years due to a clerical coding error. He knows for a fact that she cannot pay any past-due premium. His choices are remaining silent or telling the carrier about the mistake and risk subjecting his client, a…
When FDR linked social security with retirement in the U.S. he adopted the retirement age used by Germany, 65 years old. Today our average life span is more than a decade longer than it was in FDR’s time and is still going up. The question before us is, “How will our business lives change due…
Some brokers have been buying dozens of smaller agencies every year. Smaller agencies have been buying each other to supplement income and offset costs for the sake of growth and profitability. Now, twenty years after this boom, the ‘Insurance Tree’ is still blooming and growing fruit, but all the low-hanging ripe fruit is already gone.…
