Agency Operations

The title alone, I’m positive, has already caused a handful of agents to hyperventilate. If the reader is an independent agent and is not reviewing, or at least not offering to review, each renewal in detail, is not being an advocate for their clients, and is not working with all their clients to assess their…

What should Independent Agents do when faced with personal lines commission reductions? My answer: Fight for your position in distribution and add the value you should be adding, even in the face of fear. We have fear, as agents, to push back against our insurers.

Increasingly, agents are discovering that they have customers that they no longer want for one or more of many reasons. Maybe it’s a contractor that generates so much certificate of insurance activity that commissions can’t offset the cost to service the account. Other customers may have “personality” problems or present what agency management perceives as…

According to the 2014 Future One Agency Universe Study, 14% of independent agencies do not have a perpetuation plan in place. But industry experts estimate the number is much higher.

Are there any situations where you would refer a prospect to another agent? One agent who writes almost exclusively commercial lines refers personal lines opportunities to an agency that writes predominantly personal lines. In this article, Shep Hyken gives two other examples of referring potential customers to competitors and the reasons why.

This is neither an advertisement nor an endorsement, but rather an informational piece about what one agent-led group is trying to accomplish. Anyone who deals daily with certificate of insurance requests may want to read how one initiative is trying to automate this process as much as possible so that insurance information is obtainable quickly,…

One of the reasons that the direct writers and internet-based companies do so much business is that the buying public feel that insurance is a commodity—we’re all the same and the price is the only differentiation. In an impersonal internet-based world in which texting replaces actual conversations this concept makes sense—until a sour experience with…

Author: Bill Wilson “Do you have specimen wording that we can provide to our insureds to implement as a company policy requiring their employees to provide certain limits of liability on their personal auto policy when the company provides non-owned auto liability? What limits should they require?” From a legal liability perspective, our suggestion is…

Many agency owners take great pride in generating low loss ratios year after year. These agencies are often small but very, very profitable. These agency owners are not happy with many carriers who have de-emphasized loss ratios. They cannot fathom why any carrier would not LOVE their good loss ratios. They do not understand that…