Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? There’s a general perception that agency value has been increasing during the past few years. Bill Schoeffler explains why this belief is partially true and partly the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

During the past few years, there have been some notable acquisitions of agencies that seemed to push the agency value envelope. In some cases, banks were making their platform acquisition and thus willing to pay top dollar to their first acquisition of a large, well-run firm. In other cases, publicly traded firms were able to exploit their high price-to-earnings ratio to offer a high price to the seller.

DUE DILIGENCE IN AN AGENCY SALE OR ACQUISITION by Al Diamond Proper Due Diligence permits you to assess the true earnings potential of any acquisition or merger poten...

ELEVEN WORKERS COMPENSATION ISSUES by Preston Diamond When the nations legislative landscape was dominated by health care reform and relatively stable Workers Compensation rates in...

EMERGING E&O LOSS EXPOSURES by Ken Buehler With so many new concepts, new types of business, and changes in existing insurance products, insurance agents need to be more diligent than ever i...

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION: WHAT WORKS by Chris Burand How do you motivate employees? Chris Burand has made several basic observations over the years about what works in this area a...

EMPLOYEE SHORTAGES by Chris Burand According to US Banks December 2000 Simply Business, the U.S. will have 151 million jobs, but only 141 million workers by 2006. Other forecasts...

ENHANCE BUSINESS IN DIFFICULT TIMES: MANAGE FINANCES by Brian Burke, ASA Successful agencies act in seven areas to enhance business during difficult economic times: marketing, prosp...

ETHICS AND E&O by Ken Buehler At first glance, it appears certain that ethics violations made by plaintiff's attorneys against agencies have been alleged. These allegations usually include un...

ETHICS IN LIFE INSURANCE AND RELATED FINANCIAL SERVICES by Samuel H. Weese, Ph.D., CLU, CPCU and Egnar F. Jensen In recent years, ethics has become a highly visible issue in the world of financial ...

EVALUATE PROSPECTIVE BUYERS FOR YOUR AGENCY by Patricia Berry Before selling your agency, get answers to these questions. Many agency acquisitions are based on retention because b...