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... &# 160 AGREEMENT made and entered into this __ day of ___, 19_, by and among the following Parties: &# 160 A. RED INSURANCE AGENCY, INC., a Massachusetts corporation, having a principal place of business in Boston, Massachusetts; &# 160 B. WHITE INSURANCE AGENCY, INC., a Massachusetts corporation, having a principal place of business in Boston, Massachusetts; &# 160 C. BLUE INSURANCE AGENCY, INC., a Massachusetts corporation, having a principal place of business in Boston, Massachusetts; &# 160 D. JASON W. GREY of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and &# 160 E. WINSTON P. BLACK of Lexington, Massachusetts. &# 160 All of the foregoing entities and individuals shall be referred to hereinafter, collectively, as the Parties' and, individually, as a Party. &# 160 W I T N E S S E T H: &# 160 WHEREAS, each of the Parties is engaged in business in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an insurance agent and broker, and &# 160 WHEREAS, the Parties desire to associate together for the purpose of forming a joint venture to provide certain services and assistance exclusively to the Parties with respect to their future operations in the insurance business, and &# 160 WHEREAS, the Parties desire to consolidate certain aspects of the business operations other than the solicitation and production of insurance business; &# 160 NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the mutual covenants herein contained and in reliance upon the representations and warranties of the respective Parties herein set forth ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Collection Letter - Threatening Legal Action 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor This content has not been rated yet. COLLECTION LETTER - THREATENING LEGAL ACTION Dear (Customer Name), RE: BALANCE DUE It is urgent that this unpaid balance be paid by ( ) to close this account. We have verified this balance and found it to be correct. However, if you do not agree, or need additional information, please call me immediately. Unless we receive your payment in full or hear from you to make other arrangements, we will have no other alternative but to take legal action. Sincerely, &# 160 Login or Register (for FREE) to gain access to thousands of other great articles. Need more reasons to join? Need insurance for you, your business or your family? Get quality appointments - Save yourself a whole lot of time & money when you use our directory of carriers, wholesalers and service providers. Negotiate lucrative contracts with carriers and wholesalers. Net result. More revenue for your agency! Clients & Prospects will research you, your co-workers and your agency here. The most comprehensive online insurance industry reference library for - Personal Lines Professionals Commercial Lines Professionals Life/Health & Benefits Professionals Online newsletters and content that you can use for your clients and social media efforts. Ability to attach leads and clients to your specific market searches, with e-mail alerts for all the market, articles, blogs and people searches you make. And much more! All Articles by CompleteMarkets Editor Monetization type: None Comments (0 ) There ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Follow-Up Collection Letter 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor This content has not been rated yet. FOLLOW-UP COLLECTION LETTER Dear (Customer Name), RE: Policy Number Company Please take note of this reminder that your ( ) is due in our office by (Date) . It is urgent that we receive this from you by that date. In any event, give me a call, so that we can make arrangements with you for payment of this premium. Should your payment not be received nor other arrangements made, we will have no alternative but to send a 10-day direct notice of cancellation for this policy. We appreciate your sending payment now to avoid such action. Sincerely, &# 160 Login or Register (for FREE) to gain access to thousands of other great articles. Need more reasons to join? Need insurance for you, your business or your family? Get quality appointments - Save yourself a whole lot of time & money when you use our directory of carriers, wholesalers and service providers. Negotiate lucrative contracts with carriers and wholesalers. Net result. More revenue for your agency! Clients & Prospects will research you, your co-workers and your agency here. The most comprehensive online insurance industry reference library for - Personal Lines Professionals Commercial Lines Professionals Life/Health & Benefits Professionals Online newsletters and content that you can use for your clients and social media efforts. Ability to attach leads and clients to your specific market searches, with e-mail alerts for all the market, articles, blogs and people searches you make. And much ...

... hadn't appeared on the May account current we had sent them, we returned the open items listing with the annotation that they were on the June account current, and thought that everything was fine. &# 160 "When the insurer didn't receive payment on the policies by July 15, they put out direct notice of cancellation to the client without so much as a phone call or communication of any kind. &# 160 "The insurer makes a big issue out of the fact that even though these are May items, they are subject to payment 45 days following the effective date, despite their late issue and delivery. &# 160 "I contend that while they are technically correct under the agency agreement, that to take this position penalizes the agent who is shorted in his time to collect and pay the policy and that the literal terms of the contract have to give way to fairness. They are standing pat on their position. &# 160 "Would your ‘experts' have any views on this situation, which has to involve every agency at one time or another?" &# 160 In IIABA's ongoing company contract analysis, we consistently recommend that a provision be included in the agency/company contract setting out the length of time to pay balances and that this also obligates the company to pay balances due to the agent on the same basis that the agent must pay the company. &# 160 The provision should also provide that the period of time allowed to pay balances does not commence until a correct, billable, and deliverable policy is furnished to ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Avoid The Killer Curve: Maintain Business Momentum 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , John Graham This content has not been rated yet. In spite of 19th-hole braggadocio about rising sales figures, bottom-line results, and upcoming prospects, businesses do stall and stagnate. Streamline.com was a raging Internet stock until it ran into a wall. Kodak used to be a Wall Street favorite, and now it's struggling to find itself. P&G once had 99.44 % acceptance; now the tide seems to have turned. For years, Xerox set the standard; then it lost direction. It happens to smaller businesses, too. For example, a competent, well-connected credit manager formed a collection company. From the moment the doors opened, the firm was a runaway success. For four years, there was continual growth. More employees were added, and the office space doubled. Then things slowed, and some months later there was an actual plateau. Finally volume began to slide. I couldn't figure out what was going on, ' said the president. Everything was so good for so long. Every month set a new record. Then it all began to change. At first, the owner thought it was a minor glitch on the screen. We had been doing so well, I thought we were just slowing down a bit. When the downward slide continued, he called in a marketing consultant. The analysis revealed that the success of the business was due mainly to the owner's excellent networking over many years as a credit and collections manager for a large ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. 11 Surefire Tactics To Gain Control Of Receivables 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Ken Buehler This content has not been rated yet. If you have a receivables problem, now is the best time to contain it. Most agencies with receivables problems believe they appeared suddenly, but in reality the problem had existed for some time. Controlling receivables is nothing more than training your clients and your producers and the staff persons who support the producers. Monitoring should be ongoing, and that requires discipline. Here are 11 steps that will get receivables under control and keep them that way: 1. Have a formal, written collections policy and enforce it. 2. If you have a receivables problem, meet with each producer every few days until they find the source of the problem. For those problems you will be unable to clear up right away, require that a signed note if the client is willing. When they are unwilling, start cancellation and collection proceedings. 3. If a particular producer has a problem, conduct a person-to-person review of the receivables. Set weekly goals to complete until the producer has them under control. When you sit down with them each week, make their goal the first item on the agenda. Start with the accounts that are more than 90 days past due, and once those are under control, start working on the over 60s. 4. Charge receivables back to the producer when they reach over 90 days past due, unless the producer is willing to guarantee them personally. 5. Don't make exceptions-and make ...

... are we going to track the campaigns? Are we getting results? Capturing email addresses Most of the agencies that I talk to have been negligent in capturing valid email addresses from their clients. Here are some common reasons: CSRs and producers forget to ask. Clients object, and the agency is not trained to handle the objection. No clearly defined process for capturing emails – how to ask, how to record, how to mine and so on. Popular older version management systems only have one repurposed field for email addresses, so producers and CS's capture email addresses separated by commas or semi colons or spaces contributing to data inconsistencies. Simple & practical solutions So, we all know the problems. What about some solutions? Let's start by accepting responsibility for the fact that we didn't make the collection of our client's emails a strategy. Let's do this now! Make this a priority. Some agencies can use a giveaway strategy to collect email addresses, others could take the approach of submitting contact information to a third-party service that will collect the email addresses and return the information. Then follow these steps: Appoint a single, responsible and reliable person to be in charge of the project. Give him/her (let's call this person, Sally Joe) a clear goal – 75% of all clients need to have email addresses in the system in 90 days. Email your entire team of staff and producers – "Collection of email addresses is now a top priority for the agency. Sally Joe has been appointed to provide you with a script that will help you. Sally Joe ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Gem Scam Recycled: An Old Fraud Returns 5/20/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Joel Volker This content has not been rated yet. Recycling isn't always a good thing. Here's an example of a form of recycling we hoped we'd never see again: An American broker recently contacted an insurance underwriter in London and asked him to insure a set of rare gems. The King Solomon's Gems Collection' was valued in excess of $160 million. The underwriter, quite appropriately, wanted to know how the value of the stones was determined before he would insure them. As the broker began to describe the 12 stones, the underwriter smelled a rat-a rat about 15 years old. HOW IT HAPPENED In the early 1980s, a man in Tucson reported finding a large, unpolished stone in a shoe box being used to prop open a door. The stone, later named Star of Nyasa, ' was an unpolished sapphire and was appraised in 1983 at approximately $12 million. Other stones were added, and the group became known as the King Solomon Collection. The story of this rare find quickly swept through the jewelry industry. The $12 million appraisal was done by a member of the respected American Gem Society, but it turned out that his opinion of the values was greatly skewed. One professional appraiser declared that the stone was simply not of gem quality and put its worth at about $200. Others agreed. Members of the American Gem Society (AGS) held a hearing over the appraisal, and as a result the appraiser lost his ...

... one-time reduced commission for referring the business and let the P-L staff write and service it. Most agencies today do not pay Personal Lines commissions to producers anyway. Make it a part of each producer's planning to refer a certain number of Personal Lines accounts each month and then compensate them one time for those referred. If you have them focus on Commercial Lines clients and the employees of the clients, you put yourself in a much better position to keep the client on the books anyway. Strategy number four is another step that can be taken. You need to take specific actions to improve your cash flow and to reduce agency debt service. There are a number of actions that may be taken to improve cash flow. One step is to generate a return on the cash you are able to collect and use for a time. Another one is to binder bill renewals prior to renewal time. Even if you don't collect the renewal premium until the actual renewal date, you should be able to generate revenue from the collected premium for 30 to 45 days. Every day you collect prior to actual renewal date adds to revenue. Never pay a bill early unless there is an offsetting interest savings. Try to get extended terms on any obligations you have as long as there are no penalties for doing so. Time credit card purchases so that you have the maximum time in the billing cycle to pay it off. Normally, you can pay off the entire credit card balance without any interest if you pay it within the allowable billing time. That can normally give you a 30 day float ...

... Date) and all commissions attributable to the insurance written for the Subject Accounts with an inception date prior to the Accounting Date are now and shall remain in the property of and be the responsibility of the Seller and shall not be acquired by the Buyer. (b ) Except as specifically provided to the contrary hereinafter, all accounts receivable and payable (whether billed or unbilled as of the Accounting Date) and all commissions attributable to the insurance written for the Subject Accounts with an inception date prior to the Accounting Date are now and shall remain in the property of and be the responsibility of the Seller and shall not be acquired by the Buyer. (c ) Within 10 days after the Accounting Date, the Seller shall account for and deliver to the Buyer such premiums as the Seller may have collected for business written with an inception date on and after the Accounting Date; and thereafter, the Seller shall remit to the Buyer forthwith upon its receipt thereof any such receivables which are the property of the Buyer as provided herein. (d ) For purposes of this section and elsewhere throughout this Agreement, in determining the inception date of a policy, (i ) annual anniversaries on policies written for a term in excess of one year shall be deemed to be an inception date as if the coverage were written for a one year period only except in the event the premium is prepaid for the entire policy term; but (ii) in the case of policies where the premium is billed in monthly or other less than annual installments, the premium billing due date shall be deemed an inception ...