November 24, 2008 by Steve.

It’s hard to read the headlines without thinking about the future of your agency. Many agencies wonder what business will be like over the next 12 to 24 months. Due to the soft marketplace over the last couple of years, insurance agencies have already had to create plans to address lower premiums—and thus, lower revenues.

Premium reductions continue to average about 12%. As sales volumes are reduced and as businesses cut back on payroll, you can expect further reduction in premiums. I am not an investment wizard, nor can I predict the future. Still, it seems likely that agencies will continue to see reduced revenue over (at least) the next 12 to 18 months.

This may sound like doom and gloom, but it’s also an opportunity to face the situation head-on and create a plan to survive these difficult times.

Following are a few suggestions to get you thinking about how to create a strategic plan that will move your organization forward during the next 12 to 24 months.

Communicate with clients: Many of your clients have the same concerns as you about how current economic conditions are going to affect them. Now is the time for you to be proactive. Provide extra information and services that will help them manage their businesses better. Partner with a local CPA to provide a seminar on cash flow management. Seek companies that can help your clients with their marketing programs. Basically, do anything possible to let your clients know that you’re an advocate for them. This will go a long way to build loyalty with your clients.

Marketing: Acquiring new clients has always been an important part of running an insurance agency. Now, it’s even more so. Explore new target marketing niches. Explore new marketing tools that are available, such as using the Internet to attract prospects and look for new revenue sources. Agencies that continue to foster a sales-focused mindset seem to be able to grow regardless of current economic conditions.

Back office: Make sure that you are as effective and efficient in your back office operations as possible. Concentrate on getting any technology projects that are currently underway finished as soon as possible. Utilize all the tools available to streamline operations. Don’t allow staff’s resistance to change to derail projects.

Staff training: This is one of the least expensive options available. Make sure your staff is fully trained to use your existing hardware and software systems.

While times are certainly challenging, independent agents have shown again and again that they are resilient and can weather most storms. It won’t be easy. But continuing to maximize your technology investment will go a long way to help you weather the storm.

Posted in Marketing, General, Opinion | Print | 2 Comments »

November 18, 2008 by Steve.

Watching TV online has been gaining in popularity. Nearly one-fifth of American households who use the Internet watch television broadcasts online. This is double the viewership from 2006. The top two destinations for online broadcasts are official TV channel homepages and YouTube.com.

Being able to watch broadcasts on their own time and at their convenience are the top reasons users tune in online. Other reasons include avoiding commercials and portability. Nearly 72% of online households log on for entertainment purposes on a daily basis, and one in ten cites entertainment as the most important Internet activity.

Among consumers connecting to online broadcasts, 43% tune into the news, 39% watch drama shows, 34% view sitcom/comedy shows, 23% watch reality shows, 16% view sports, and 15% view user-generated content. Other categories attracting viewers include previews, additional content from favorite shows, soap operas, and advertisements.

Among online TV viewers, almost nine out of ten watch online broadcasts at home. About 15% say they watch Internet broadcasts in the office, and 6% watch TV online from other locations, including the library or a friend’s home.

The Consumer Internet Barometer is based on a quarterly survey of 10,000 households.

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November 13, 2008 by Steve.

AMS Services has released a new version of BenefitPoint, a Web-based, benefit management and procurement solution for brokers and benefit consultants. The new version of BenefitPoint features deeper integration, enhanced commissions tracking and customization, and new event-driven workflow capabilities.

A new component of the commission tracking system, eStatements, is an electronic statement conversion tool designed for BenefitPoint brokerage clients to upload electronic carrier statement data. BenefitPoint’s eStatements substantially decreases the time spent manually entering statement data and helps prevent typing errors.

BenefitPoint is also nearing completion of its real-time integration with Applied Systems’ Vision product. The state-of-the-art integration synchronizes client, policy, and commission data between the two applications, eliminating double entry. With the new version of BenefitPoint, staff members will enjoy deep functionality and reporting, and automatic flow and merging of information into Vision and the overall production reports.

Posted in General, Benefits Management Systems, Agency Management Systems | Print | No Comments »

November 7, 2008 by Steve.

Once every three years, the Big I asks its insurance company partners, state association affiliates, and other industry organizations to nominate those agencies they believe to be among the most efficient and high performing agencies in the industry for each of the study’s revenue categories. These agencies are asked to submit operational information in many areas. This information is carefully evaluated and ranked, culminating in the choice of the top 30 agencies in each revenue category. These agencies earn the status of “Best Practices Agency.”

Overall, this year’s study shows that agencies are doing much more with fewer people, and organic growth rate is much stronger than expected. When asked the reason for their success, the new crop of Best Practices Agencies said, overwhelmingly, regardless of agency size, “the quality of our people.” This quality can be defined as a strong work ethic, expert knowledge in agency products and services, as well as high ethical standards and dedication. These factors, coupled with advanced proficiency in agency technology, allowed the 2008 Best Practices Agencies to push productivity levels higher than ever.

Although positive revenue growth was difficult to achieve, Best Practices Agencies continued to invest in new production talent. The majority of agencies with revenues over $2.5 million hired at least 1.5 new producers during the last fiscal year, with the largest agencies hiring an average of 9.4 new producers.

The average starting salary across all revenue categories ranged from $52,000 to $95,000. The largest agencies, those with revenues over $25 million, tended to hire more experienced producers, while those in the lower revenue categories tended to hire producers with less sales and/or insurance experience.

The study and a listing of the 2008 Best Practices Agencies can be accessed at www.independentagent.com, www.reaganconsulting.com, or at bp.reaganconsulting.com.

Through this site, you can also view an HTML version of current and past executive updates, download a Best Practices comparison spreadsheet to compare your agency’s year-end results with the study’s results, and access other Best Practices studies, tools, and products and download order forms.

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

November 3, 2008 by Steve.

American Airlines has announced the launch of a new mobile broadband service, Gogo,™ provided by Aircell. Customers traveling on American’s Boeing 767-200 aircraft can access complete coast-to-coast coverage on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami.

Aircell’s Gogo service will be available to customers as a fee-based service in all cabins. Aircell will charge $12.95 on flights that are longer than three hours, which include American’s Boeing 767-200 flights. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services are not available. Gogo turns an American Airlines flight into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Once the aircraft has reached 10,000 feet, users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones, and PDAs, open their browsers and be directed to the Gogo portal page where they can sign up and begin surfing. Gogo is powered by the Aircell air-to-ground (ATG) Broadband System, which runs over Aircell’s exclusive nationwide network.

Posted in Cool Tools, General | Print | No Comments »

October 29, 2008 by Steve.

Every day, business travelers are putting the sensitive and confidential data of their organizations at risk when they travel through airports. Although companies are dependent upon on a mobile workforce, this mobility is putting companies at risk of having a data breach if a laptop containing sensitive information is lost or stolen.

Sponsored by Dell, Ponemon Institute conducted a study, Airport Insecurity: The Case of Lost Laptops, to understand the current risks posed to sensitive and confidential data contained in the laptops of business travelers. According to the study:

• Business travelers lose more than 12,000 laptops per week in U.S. airports.

• Only 33% of laptops lost and found in airports are reclaimed.

• Over 53% of business travelers say that their laptops contain confidential or sensitive information. However, 65% of these travelers admit they do not take steps to protect or secure the information contained on their laptop.

• According to U.S. airport representatives, the most common airport locations where laptops are lost include security checkpoints (40%) and departure gates (23%).

This study highlights the fact that every laptop in your agency should be secured and encrypted to make sure that personal customer information is protected in the event the laptop is lost or stolen.

Posted in General | Print | 2 Comments »

October 22, 2008 by Steve.

Microsoft recently launched a new Web site called Photosynth that creates 3D views from digital photos. With nothing more than a digital camera and some inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a 3D, 360-degree experience.

Photosynth is a mixture of two independent breakthroughs: the ability to reconstruct the scene or object from flat photographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet. Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point each photo was taken from. Photosynth was inspired by the breakthrough research on Photo Tourism from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research.

It is easy to use. Using any digital camera, take a series of pictures of a scene or object (such as a client’s factory). Make sure you overlap each photo. Take as many pictures as you want, and take them from as many different angles as you can. Fifty to 100 pictures should be sufficient. Upload the photos to Photosynth and the service will “stitch” the pictures together, creating a panoramic view you can navigate using a browser.

Photosynth provides an interesting new way to deliver visual information to a client or underwriter—and it’s currently free.

Posted in Marketing, Cool Tools, General | Print | No Comments »

October 16, 2008 by Steve.

During a recent presentation, I noticed a younger person in the very back of the room working on his computer as he was listening to me talk. (And no, he wasn’t taking a continuing education class.) During one of the breaks, he approached me and said, “We have to talk.”

He explained that he had started a new agency less than two years ago that concentrates on personal lines coverages for individuals with high net worth and high valued homes. He had two additional full-time employees and did not have a physical office. He was receiving most of his leads through Internet lead aggregators, such as Netquote and InsureMe.

As I listened to this “20-something” describe his insurance agency, I was struck by his creativity and willingness to expand beyond what had been done in the past. I’ve since started an e-mail conversation with him so that I can explore how he uses technology to support his organization. I wanted to know how he tracks client information. He uses Salesforce.com. Following are some excerpts from one e-mail conversation:

Q: What’s lacking in current agency management systems?

A: Mostly, they are all commercial insurance driven. (And rightfully so… with their distribution model and the fact that 99% of agencies are general in nature… they’d be foolish to make a niche product for personal lines.) If I have to choose to create workarounds in an existing commercial agency management system or just build one from the ground up using my exact terms and processes, I prefer the custom ground up idea.

The major plus of an existing agency management system would be company integration… upload/download. Because I’m so niched… my primary company barely does anything with upload/download as it is. If I download partial information, I’m really not that much better off than downloading nothing. In the end, if I have to log into the company portal to get “real” up-to-date information… download isn’t that impressive. Not to mention that we have a low target for number of accounts… say 300 to 400. With that low number, using a people-driven process to move data from the company to our system isn’t all that impractical… particularly if we move to outsourced/overnight processing either overseas or in our own backyard (i.e. $12 per hour to look at all the changes posted in [the carrier] system and to move that data into our agency management system).

Q: What are the advantages of SalesForce.com?

A: SalesForce’s “Long Tail” model is its biggest strength. Because SalesForce is simply a platform without a predesigned set of usage guidelines, their focus is keeping the main infrastructure on the cutting edge. I’ve been thinking of it like a box of Legos. They’re constantly adding pieces that we can add to our custom build, so long as we don’t “misuse” pieces. The most exciting part is the SalesForce App Exchange. People can build their own apps and customizations and sell them to people using SalesForce. This means if a guy in India wants to make a few bucks, he can build a .wav to text converter that works seamlessly inside SalesForce.

Bottom line

Traditional agency management systems will be around for a long time. Yet, how many young people are entering the industry without preconceived notions of what a data management system should be? Certainly one young agent does not create a trend. That said, this agent is using (and will use) whatever technology platform he can find that will help run his business.

Posted in Cool Tools, General, Agency Management Systems, Opinion | Print | 2 Comments »