August 28, 2008 by Steve.

How many people on your current staff are eligible for retirement in the next five years?

This is a question I recently posed to the Human Resources director of a 100-person agency. I had been asked to come to the agency to discuss future trends and things the agency should do now to plan for the future. The director didn’t immediately know the answer to my questions—but it didn’t take her long to find out. After running a report on the participants in their retirement plan, she discovered that 30% of the existing staff would become eligible for retirement in the next five years.

Why plan today?
“In talking with agency CSR staff where there has been a loss of individuals who have not been replaced—or who have been replaced with less experienced individuals—the existing CSRs take on more of the workload,” says TAAR writer Pat Alexander. “I see growing backlogs in these cases, and that leads to loss in productivity, burnout, and frustration.”

To avoid this scenario, it’s important to start planning now. It’s also important to remember that just because employees become eligible to retire doesn’t necessarily mean they will retire. Many employees will continue to work because they want to or because they have to. Many Baby Boomers underestimated what they would need financially to retire comfortably, so they work full-time for longer than expected.

Still, it would be dangerous to assume this is the case for your entire organization. An employee’s ability to work can change at any time. A spouse, child, parent, or grandchild who becomes sick or disabled can affect how long an employee might be able to work or how many hours that person can work. Because people are living longer, an increasing number of Baby Boomers are facing the prospect of caring for their parents.

Ask the right questions
Who is likely to retire and when? Who is going to replace these workers? How will the organization attract, hire, and retain people to replace those who leave? How will you train these new staff members? The solution is not as simple as finding new bodies to replace the old ones. How will you capture the knowledge and experience of these valuable staff members?

These are all questions that need to be asked now. Plans need to be put in place that will provide answers. There are some steps you can take to address these questions and begin thinking about how you will solve the problem:

• Find out who in your organization will be eligible for retirement in the next 5 to 10 years.

• Build a “recruit or die” mindset. Recruiting new talent needs to be woven into your organizational culture. It should not be a project when you need to fill a position, but a mindset that involves always looking for new talent.

• Create a career path for new employees. No one wants to be stuck in a “job.” Creating an insurance career will help you retain people longer.

• Create a training program. The industry, especially agencies, do not do a very good job of providing the tools and training necessary to help an employee become successful.

This issue is not going to go away. Find out now how much of an impact retirement will be on your organization and begin the planning process.

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August 21, 2008 by Steve.

The latest version of the Firefox Internet browser was recently released with over 8 million downloads achieved in one day. This release is significant due to Firefox’s continued increase in market share. According to Net Applications, Firefox had a 5.5% increase in browser share in the last year, paralleling a 6% drop in IE use and leaving Firefox poised to hit 20% of the browser market.

With 1 out of 5 browser hits being from Firefox, we are at the point where Web designers can no longer afford to build “IE only” sites. This change is important for Web developers in the insurance industry to recognize. In our own limited test, we have found Firefox to be significantly faster in displaying Web pages. At the same time, we find sites that don’t quite work right in Firefox.

Posted in Events, General | Print | 1 Comment »

August 18, 2008 by Steve.

International Risk Management Institute, Inc. (IRMI) has made access to the Glossary of Insurance and Risk Management Terms available on its public Web site, www.IRMI.com.

There is absolutely no cost to access definitions of the 3,000-plus insurance terms it contains. Previously, this resource was only available to those who purchased it.

In addition to definitions of more than 3,000 risk management and insurance terms, the IRMI Glossary translates 860 acronyms and abbreviations, making it one of the most comprehensive and up to date insurance and risk glossaries available.

The IRMI Glossary provides quick answers to questions involving unfamiliar terminology used in insurance policies, submissions, proposals, and risk management reports. It also cross-references to specific sections in IRMI for occasions when more information is needed on selected topics.

The risk and insurance community can contribute by suggesting improvements in existing definitions or suggesting new terms and definitions to include. If your definition is accepted, you will be listed in a special contributors section on IRMI.com, and this listing will include a valuable link to your Web site.

The index to the IRMI Glossary is also available to put on other Web sites in the risk and insurance community. This allows organizations to easily add a glossary feature for their Web site visitors to use, and also include more than 3,000 key terms on a Web site to assist with search engine rankings.

The IRMI Glossary is listed in the Free Resources section of www.IRMI.com on the left-hand side.

Posted in Events, Cool Tools, General, Agency Management Systems | Print | No Comments »

August 11, 2008 by Steve.

Seminars, education forums, and other events are an excellent way to market the services and value your agency provides. Creating an “add this event” link on your Web site is a simple way to help your clients or prospects automatically update their Outlook calendars with the event details.

It’s simple. First, create a new event in your Outlook calendar. Include the event name, specific location information (put in the location line), the time, and any other information you want to include in the notes section. Then click on File|Save As. In the “Save as type” drop-down list, choose the vCalendar (*.vcs) file format. Name your file something relevant (e.g. Workers Comp-Seminar.vcs) and then upload that file to your Web server.

On your Web site (or in an e-mail you send) just point a link to the URL where the file resides on your Web server. When your readers click on the link, the file will open and—voila—Outlook adds it to their calendars.

You may want to include simple instructions. And be sure to test it before you post the link on your site or in an e-mail.

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August 4, 2008 by Steve.

The percentage of U.S. households with broadband Internet connections has grown from 12% in 2002 to 49% today, and 112 million U.S. adults now have high-speed Web access at home, according to a study by Scarborough Research.

The study, based on a panel of 220,000 adults 18 and older, found significant regional variation in broadband penetration. San Francisco topped the list, with 62% of adults living in households with broadband Web access, followed by Boston and San Diego at 61%. At the bottom of the list was Roanoke/Lynchburg, Va., at 29% and Charleston/Huntington, W.Va., at 33%. Most of the markets with low broadband penetration are in the South and Southwest.

Not surprisingly, adults with broadband access are more likely to use the Internet, including for shopping. For instance, 10% of those with broadband access have spent $2,500 or more online in the past year, compared with 8% of all adults. That means adults with broadband at home are 23% more likely to have spent at least $2,500 online in the past year. They are 20% more likely than average to have spent between $1,000 and $1,500 and 12% more likely to have spent between $500 and $1,000, the survey shows.

They also use the Internet in other ways, being 30% more likely than the average American to have downloaded podcasts during the past month, 29% more likely to have downloaded or watched TV programs, and 27% more likely to have downloaded or listened to audio clips.

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