Agent For Change

Dodging the wave

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:22:14 +0000

If you watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night, you’ll know that although priorities may have shifted, he still supports both healthcare and financial services reform — the most recent permutation of which includes the elimination of insurers’ antitrust exemption. Unfortunately, to politicians and people in general, ”insurance,” “health insurance” and “financial services” are [...]

When good agents go bad

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:50:44 +0000

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud’s recently released interim survey of state insurance fraud bureaus includes some predictable stuff, and a couple of surprises. For instance, it’s no surprise that the bureaus reported that all types of insurance fraud were up, and that their operating budgets were down. What did surprise me, though, was that agent fraud is [...]

Web presence: Are you just “showing up”?

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:49:19 +0000

In our December look at agency Internet marketing, the first question in our reader survey was, “Does your agency/brokerage have a Web site?” The response was 81%. Why not 100%, you might ask. Another person asking was Duke Williams, a blogger and consultant on agency Internet use. Last month, Duke decided to conduct an informal survey [...]

At least you’re not a roustabout

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:29:37 +0000

With all due respect, I think the researchers at Careercast.com must be, as the Brits say, “having us on.” That’s the only conclusion I can come to after looking at their much-touted “Best Jobs for 2010” list, just up on their Web site. Not so much that they rank the job of insurance actuary as No. 1. [...]

Ten years after

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:34:51 +0000

When the countdown ends on 2009, it also brings an end to the first decade of the new millennium. It’s hard to believe how much our world has changed in those 10 short years, from global terrorism (still happening) to the financial meltdown to the ascendancy of the Internet. Let’s look at just a few: Everything [...]

Going green — promise deferred?

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:04:44 +0000

Last June, AA&B took an in-depth look at insurers and agents who were specializing in “green” insurance coverage. Our sources spoke glowingly of the potential for growth in green construction, especially in the area of retrofitting existing buildings — a topic covered in a current Web exclusive article on the subject. Supporters maintain that adopting green building methods and [...]

Fraud!

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:44:49 +0000

Maybe I just have fraud on the brain since attending last week’s annual PLUS International Conference in Chicago (see our Web exclusive article on data breach), where the subject came up a lot, but there does seem to be a lot of synchronicity about fraud issues in the zeitgeist lately. Just today, National Underwriter posted the findings [...]

What to do when pigs (swine) fly?

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:39:08 +0000

Did you get your flu shot? Are you washing or sanitizing your hands? And more to the point, what’s the absentee level at your office? Here at the Chicago Summit Business Media office where AA&B is based, we’ve had at least two fairly lengthy employee absences because of some form of flu. Although one case was inconclusive, the other [...]

CIAB’s insurance exchange: It’s all good

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:16:16 +0000

While I was attending the ASCnet TENCon in Kansas City earlier this month, CIAB made big news by announcing a partnership with LexisNexis to build a Web-based insurance exchange for independent producers. The project, which goes into testing next summer, is designed to make interface easier between insurers and producers– a subject near and dear to the heart of [...]

It’s Progressive’s Flo — and an independent agent

Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent & Broker — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:50:36 +0000

Last month we posted an interview on our Web page with Progressive’s Karen Barone, national distribution leader for agency business, which proved to be 0ne of our most popular features. Not surprisingly, part of the article’s interest — or more accurately, controversy — involves Progressive’s promotion of direct purchase along with sales through its agency force. Many of our readers pointed to [...]