Change — it’s inevitable. A recent article stated that “change is not progress; change is the price we pay for progress.” As consumers, we all want more, better, less costly stuff than we have today. As providers of products and services, we feel that we’re already doing more with less and shouldn’t be expected to sacrifice again. Maxine, the cartoon character, summed it up best when she said, “change is good, as long as I can do what I’ve always done.”

Gunther Gunderson had doubled the sales staff in his ski shop. Heidi Svenson, the shop's thermal underwear buyer, suggested that Gunderson might save money and take charge of his employees' medical insurance coverage by opening a Medical Savings Account (MSA). Gunderson was skeptical until Svenson showed him Section 105 (h) of the Internal Revenue code which allows employers to start MSAs for their employees' welfare.

The bar has been raised in order to qualify 'expert witnesses.' Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence** addresses the qualification of expert witnesses, as do procedural rules at the state level. This document by Roy Phillips and Thomas Veitch gives you the details.

With the free household inventory booklet we're offering, you can easily list every item in your home, along with its value.

IGNORANCE IS BLISS. This may be true in some cases, but when it comes to your insurance program, ignorance can be dangerous.

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.

The following are several telephone scripts* to use for sales-related duties such as x-dating, lead-generation, and qualification.

I have always been a believer that the best salespeople we have working for us are our clerical staff. The biggest problem seems to be our lack of proper motivational tools to excite them into selling. I have attempted to change their method of thinking, and although our program is in its infancy, it appears to be a step in the right direction.

Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous chemicals covers application, process safety information, employee involvement, and process hazard analysis. The employer must consider safety records in selecting contractors and informing contractors of potential process hazards etc.

So what are 'incurred but not reported losses,' and what do they mean to your agency? The key to a credible analysis of IBNR is to gather as much data as possible that’s unique to the insurance program. Al Rhodes shows you how to analyze your IBNR in this document.