SELF-INSURANCE ADMINISTRATION/CAPTIVES IN A HARDENING MARKET by Carol Hammes Self-insurance programs, captives, and risk retention groups will grow dramatically as premiums increase. U...

SELL YOURSELF AND YOUR AGENCY Karen Flaherty, president, Professional Training Systems, Inc., conducted a telephone survey of 50 independent insurance agencies to evaluate how well agencies responded...

SELLING CUSTOMER SERVICE by Carol Hammes When losing a major Commercial account or watching the Personal Lines attrition rate go up, many agency principals are tempted to write it off to price c...

Here's a letter I received recently:
Dear Dave:
I work for a $3.5 million P/C agency with about 60% Commercial and 40% Personal in premium volume. One in-house Life producer handles Commercial and Personal lines, sometimes with outside help. But she doesn't write any Disability policies at all; she considers Disability insurance a specialty that she doesn't want to sell. Should I try to talk her into it, pressure her into it, or just let it go? I don't want to add another full-time Life agent unless he/she would become profitable early on; it took two years for my present Life agent to reach profitability. What are my alternatives?

Although the technology is in place to sell insurance via the Net, consumers aren’t giving up the one night a year when they sit in their living rooms and listen to their agent pontificate about the advantages of "Plan A" versus "Plan B."

This dynamic might be changing. Insurers have cleared a huge hurdle for online sales — the need for a customer signature — either by using credit cards to bind coverage until the policy can be issued or by legalizing electronic signatures. Despite this advance, a very low percentage of insurance transactions are being handled online.

Situation: Our agency has several thousand personal lines insureds, and we have written mortgage reduction life insurance-reducing term-on many. But we're not writing much of anything else in personal lines Life or Health, partly because our life producer is uncomfortable with that market.
I know there's more to life than reducing term, but what can I as agency president-not a Life expert at all-do about developing more business from that potential? (Our commercial accounts are handled well by other life producers.)

SIMPLE WAYS TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR AGENCY by E. Al Diamond Every year, I see agencies struggling with the problem of how to differentiate themselves from their competition. This is an especi...

SOLICITATION OF PERSONAL LINES PACKAGE POLICY WHY PAY FOR 2 WHEN 1 WILL DO? Dear (Customer Name): Where would Fred Astaire be without Ginger Rogers? Laurel without Hardy? Now here's another great...

STAFF MEETINGS 101 by the IIABA Virtual Faculty In general, virtually all agencies should have periodic staff meetings. Unfortunately, too often these meetings are unproductive. According to one ...

STAFFING & PRODUCTIVITY: HOW DO YOU MEASURE UP? by Judith Newman Is your agency overstaffed - or understaffed? How would you describe your agencys performance: Hi...