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... doesn't receive more attention. The good news: Sloppy industries are ripe for agencies that can deliver quality! Let's first establish the extent of the sloppiness. Insurers manufacture only paper and when claims occur, they manufacture checks and legal defense. Some sophisticated agencies manufacture loss control (risk management) The industry does not manufacture complex machines. In fact, even the forms used are usually standard, boilerplate commodities. Yet, there are insurance companies that can't print and mail, or even e-mail a policy before the effective date, even on renewals where nothing changes. These policies are not merely a day late, a week late, or sometimes even just a month late. I have personally received my business owners policy (BOP) renewal nine months late. That's a longer delay than a space shuttle launch. Keep in mind the complexity of a space shuttle. My BOP had one custom item: my name. That's sloppy. Agencies spend small fortunes checking insurance policies delivered by carriers and brokers for errors. They do this because the error rate is still too high. Years ago, after writing an article about carrier error rates, I received a call from the head of quality control for a major insurer, told me that her company never made mistakes. I have told this story many times to agents, especially agents who represent this company. They roar with laughter; they know better. One reason this industry is so sloppy is that denial is the favorite reaction of too many insurance executives. Of course, this makes these companies vulnerable to smarter competition because it's tough to ...

... roads in Europe and England for their legions. Some of the roads are still in use. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they all had the same wheel spacing. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches has its origins in the specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. The chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. So the next time you see an odd specification and wonder what horse's derriere came up with it, you might be exactly right. Here's the twist to the story: When a space shuttle is on its launch pad, it has two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters (SRBs) . Thiokol Propulsion makes the SRBs at its factory in Utah. The engineers who designed them would've made them a bit fatter, but the SRBs travel from the factory to the launch site by train. The railroad line from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is just wide enough to accommodate two horses' behinds. So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined more than 2,000 years go — by the width of a horse's derriere! ...