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IIABA Best Practices
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Five Practices of Highly Effective Leaders
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Building a Leading Sales Organization
Based upon the IIAA Best Practices Study of the leading sales organizations in the United States – inside and outside of insurance – this seminar leads participants through the key attributes all such organizations and how each can be applied to create a true sales culture in an individual insurance agency.
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Best Practices in Business Perpetuation
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POWER of Change
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Using the Self-Diagnostic Tool
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Introduction to Best Practices
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Best Practices Greatest Hits; or Top Ten Ways Best Practices Agencies are Kicking Your Butt
Sure, it’s a tough market. The economy isn’t great, competition is fierce, clients aren’t happy, and carriers can’t seem to get enough business to keep them happy.
So what else is new? It seems in whatever marketplace, in any location, at any revenue level, there are always those agencies that, instead of sinking beneath the flood, simply float higher with the tide. What do they know you don’t? What are they doing you aren’t?
Based upon the annually updated IIABA Best Practices program findings, this seminar will give you the top real reasons successful agencies are not only surviving but growing. How do they seem to get so lucky? How do they build strong relationships with their carriers? Where do they find (and how do they keep) their best employees? And why do they have clients instead of customers?
So if you want to stop getting your butt kicked, and start kicking back (as well as pick up a few CE credits along the way), sign up now! This isn’t just theory or the latest management fad. Learn what real agencies are doing in the real world to make real money.
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Best Practices of Errors & Omissions Loss Control
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Management
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Building A Customer Centric Organization
Truly effective customer service isn’t just learning how to deal with difficult people, answer the phone by the third ring, and smile even when irritated. It’s about creating an agency environment centered upon the customer, from the top management level. Learn how many agencies defeat any chance of success with agency procedures and policies that torpedo the staff’s ability to deliver truly outstanding service. Then see how to avoid their mistakes (and fate) within your own organization.
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Bloodlines and Birthdates: Gen X, Families and the Future of Your Insurance Agency
They are millions strong, and solidly underway in establishing careers and changing society. Yet how well do you understand the current and future impact of Generation X on your agency? And what further complications arise if the Xers you are struggling to understand are members of your own family and the potential future of your organization? Focused upon internal agency growth, perpetuation and leadership, this seminar provides a framework for understanding the overall generational traits shared by Xers, the possibilities (and challenges) these traits bring to your agency, and how understanding and embracing the value brought by this generation can ensure agency success far into the future.
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Targeting Generation X Paul McCartney may have done well with “Yesterday”, but if you want to build an agency with a future, better you should follow Fleetwood Mac’s advice and “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”. And tomorrow for independent insurance agencies looks a lot like Generation X. Come to “Targeting Generation X” and learn answers to questions such as: Who is this Generation X, and why are they such a “goldmine”? And what about the other generations in the current marketplace, particularly the Baby Boomers? Don’t they deserve some notice as well? Why should agencies begin actively recruiting talented Xers to join their staff, and/or start paying more attention to those already on their team? You’ll take away a broader vision of your agency’s future, specifics about next steps, and a copy of the latest IIABA National Young Agent Committee sales tool, “Targeting Generation X: Preparing for Tomorrow…Today.”
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Six Ways to Get Sued and How to Avoid Them (E&O)
There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only six ways to get sued for insurance agent's E&O. (OK, maybe seven, but the last one is a bonus!) This seminar will not only reveal these mysterious six ways (HINT: think Wizard of Oz and Cool Hand Luke), but also the key methods for making sure your agency never falls prey to their evils. It's safe to say you may never have attended an E&O seminar quite like this. Come, enjoy, and learn.
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Developing Your Sales Staff
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It's the People, Stupid! Agency Strategies for the Wired World
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Fair and Equal Access (Sponsored by Travelers Insurance Company)
"Surrounding the typical agency are dozens, hundreds or thousands of highly qualified prospects who are looking for competent, friendly insurance help. Yet, is it possible your agency has been building walls instead of opening doors? In your constant search for new business, have this potential motherload of profitable business been overlooked, or worse yet, ignored? Take off the blindfold, remove the blinders, or update your prescription lenses, because this seminar will help you see what you've been missing. Come to understand both the threats (if you continue to ignore these markets) and the opportunities (if you'll reach out to them). Fair and Equal Access isn't just a good thing; it's a PROFIT thing!"
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Street Level Ethics
It often appears that the majority of what passes for “ethics training” is having little or no effect on individual or corporate behaviors. Case in point: Enron, which has become the poster child for lack of ethical behavior, had an extensive ethics program in place, evidently to little effect. Perhaps this is due to the fact that majority of ethics courses fall into two basic camps: those that are primarily morality essays, and those that are basically an academic exercise. Both have key flaws.
“Street Level Ethics” takes a different approach. Originally developed by me for the American Institute for CPCU, these materials are not intended to be the final word on creating ethical behavior in insurance practitioners, but rather to serve as an introduction to the “street level” application of what are often seen as esoteric topics. The main objective is to lead the workshop participants to start “wading into the pool” of what constitutes an ethical dilemma. Realistic case studies are included for analysis. The intent is to avoid two extremes common to the subject: (1) turning the subject into an “intellectual” philosophical discussion, littered with fifty-dollar words such as “teleological”; or (2) creating a moral “firefight,” where all anyone gleans from the arguments is that the person who disagrees with me “is so lacking in morals his or her licenses should be pulled.”
The course objective is for each participant to confront the complexity of the issues, recognize the possibilities of multiple solutions, and then begin formulating a personal approach to choosing a valid ethical solution when confronted by such situations in their own daily activities.
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Producer Development
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Planning and Goal Setting for Producers
As a wise sage once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” Far too many producers are so focused on the next sale, they have no idea the path to failure may be paved with sales that should never have been made. Knowing the difference between goal-oriented activities and merely “running like mad but getting nowhere” is the heart of this seminar. Included are steps to effective planning, goal-setting and priority management, all illustrated with producer-specific examples.
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Producers: Mapping Your Own Road to Success
For many producers, the career guidance they get in their first months or years of this business amounts to “You have a license – now go sell something.” This seminar will lay out a producer’s roadmap for success, from daily activities to annual planning. Materials will include a template for calendaring prospecting, sales and educational plans.
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Selling Coverages, Not Price (also titled "Selling Value, Not Price")
Everyone says all prospects care about is the price. Is it possible that’s because the price is the only part of insurance they actually understand? Hop off the price train by learning to sell the meal, not the menu. Insurance is at heart an amazing product, and this seminar will focus on specific coverage examples for presenting our product as solutions to real problems, not just one more bill to pay.
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Top Ten Deal Closers You Can Use Tomorrow
In this world of “consultative” and “relationship” selling, it’s easy to overlook one key fact: the difference between successful producers and failures is knowing the difference between merely building relationships and making the sale. What are the most common barriers to the client saying “yes” (and writing a check) and how can they be overcome? (HINT: They are mostly in the producer’s head.) What can a producer learn from the “secret” of appliance repairmen everywhere? This seminar will clearly illustrate how thin the line between success and failure in selling can be, and how to be sure you stay on the “success” side!
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Unlocking Success: The Seven Keys to Highly Successful Sales
Just what are the key elements of building a professional, client-focused career as a producer? And why didn’t anyone tell us about them early in our careers instead of our having to learn the hard way, based upon sometimes cruel experience? Based upon years of experience of the instructor and fellow successful producers, this course will help the student avoid the common pitfalls and stumbles we all encounter in building a successful sales career. Attendees will attain a much higher level of client service and effective risk modification assistance far quicker (and thus minimizing the errors and omissions that clients must suffer during the learning path) than the traditional “learn as you go”.
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Elite Sales Class
The most comprehensive insurance sales training course available!
Average results of over $62,000 1st year commissions!
Developed by the Florida Association of Insurance Agents and endorsed by the IIABA (leading to the conferment of the Associate in Insurance Production (AIP) designation), the 12 days of classes are held three days per quarter and cover everything from prospecting to data gathering and closing. The Elite Force learns the full psychology of the sale, not just tricks or gimmicks. The course teaches personality traits, negotiation skills, time management, consultative relationship building, building credibility, and more. Several popular sales techniques are reviewed. Case studies and the students' own actual experiences are discussed among the group, so they learn from each other's successes and failures. Students are sent home each quarter with various publications and books to study which outline various sales methods. Plus, they learn about presentation skills, using the Web for prospecting, and how to set, measure and track their sales goals. Class size is limited, since we want to spend considerable one-on-one time with each candidate during the 12 days and give everyone a chance to share and learn from their personal experiences.
In fact, goal setting and reporting are the "written" requirements of the designation. Instead of the traditional paper and pen academic testing of most designations, the Associate in Insurance Production (AIP) requires instead that each student submit a written report each month that tracks their activities and production results. We know of no other sales training school that has both production tracking and a designation incorporated into the curriculum.
The Elite Force intends to develop STUDENTS OF INSURANCE SALES - in order to encourage life-long learning in insurance and sales.
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Technical
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Living a Life of Layering and Excess: Commercial Umbrella Analysis
Given there is no such thing as a “standard” commercial umbrella, how do you choose the best product for each client? How can you sort out the right fit from the potentially hundreds of options available? Why might it make a difference, when using multiple layers of coverage, which excess policy pays first, and how can you minimize the possibly devastating gaps in coverage? How widely can coverage vary even among differing forms available from the same carrier? This course will cover a multitude of such issues, and provide a template for comparing various umbrella forms to each other.
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How To Battle an Adjuster and Win Every Time
Of course we hope you won’t actually go to war with an adjuster, and since they are often right there is no need to win every time. But what of those claim scenarios where no one seems particularly happy with the outcome, particularly your insured? If you as an agent are truly trying to help your insureds through an often difficult and emotional process, how do you first sort through all the coverage issues and forms language to decide who is really right? This seminar will assist in your travails by illustrating the claims-analysis process, how to dig out what a policy is truly trying to say, how court cases may either hinder or help, and how to utilize what you learn to negotiate with a carrier over disputed claims.
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Sixth Sense PL -- I See Dead Accounts“To paraphrase an old lawyer joke: "What do you call having written both the auto and the homeowners on a given PL account? CORRECT ANSWER: A good start!" Far too many independent agencies evidently think the answer is "a well-rounded account". And that must be the reason they often settle for writing less than 30% of the possible PL coverages on a given account - and blindly leaving a huge amount of coverage on the table! And in the tradition of "Where's Waldo?", this presentation will help you discover there are at least 5 (and possibly as many as 9) coverages needed by typical personal lines accounts - without counting the auto or homeowners! Just like that kid in the movie, you'll learn to see what others don't. Except in this case, you'll be bringing your accounts to life. The only thing dying will be your E&O exposure.”
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A Walk Through the Homeowners -- Section I
A Walk Through the Homeowners -- Section II
These seminars utilize the current ISO homeowners form and endorsements to familiarize students with actual provisions and language, raise potential issues important to proper coverage for individual client needs, and suggest solutions for those issues
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PL Wars: Forms, Facts and Flummery
“Flummery: n. complete nonsense; foolish humbug.” All too often that seems an apt description for many of the issues confronting us in insurance today, particularly in personal lines. Underwriting rules evolve before our eyes, claims are paid or denied with no apparent rhyme or reason and rapid changes in our economy and technology threaten to render forms wording obsolete before the ink is dry. How does one not only survive but profit from this chaos?
As a great sage once said, “In a blind kingdom, the one-eyed man rules.” You don’t have to be perfect, just better than your competition. Let this session give you insights into the darkness, make some sense of the confusion, separate the facts from the flummery, and do a better job for your clients (and yourself) in the bargain.
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Weather Stripping the CGL: Drafts, Gaps, Forms, and Fixes
This class will discuss the A-Z’s of the CGL. This solid, “practical issues faced every day in the agency” course will delve into the specific language of the ISO CGL form to answer the most-asked questions arising from insuring agreements, contractual provisions, separation of insured, mobile equipment and autos, damage to property, who is an insured, and certificates. It will reveal how to wield the most under-utilized sword in the astute producer’s armory – understanding and using endorsements.
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The Adventures of ACE Insura, Claims Detective (Available in a full day format – both Personal and Commercial Lines cases; or in a ½ day Personal or Commercial Lines only version)
Part Sherlock Holmes, part Inspector Clouseau, legendary claims detective, ACE Insura, has been solving insurance mysteries for over twenty years. You may have read some of his exploits since Independent Agent magazine began publishing them in September 2000. Most IA magazine readers have mistakenly assumed that, like Holmes and Clouseau, ACE Insura is a fictional character. Not so...and to prove it, we have retained his services for this special workshop. Now you'll have the opportunity to work with ACE live and in person and learn his techniques for solving insurance claims that have baffled adjusters for years.
From "The Case of Something or Somebody Stinks" to "The Case of the 'Holey' Insurance," you'll use the tools and materials provided by ACE to examine one insurance mystery after another, then match wits with ACE to see if your sleuthing skills measure up to his. While ACE may not agree with your interpretations, he will defend to the death your right to be wrong! At the end of each claims scenario, you’ll find a link to ACE’s solution on the IIABA Virtual University web site so that you’ll be able to go back to each claim and check ACE’s answer, particularly if there are claims that ACE can’t cover during the workshop due to time constraints. Please be aware that ACE is a spiritual person and practices the teachings of Jedi Master Chris “Yoda” Amrhein:
"The ability to read and understand the basics of commonly used insurance form language is a skill to be practiced, honed and treasured, not just by attorneys or 'technicians', but by all producers or others who answer consumers' questions. To fail to do so is to place yourself in constant jeopardy of misleading clients and failing to provide adequate advice and coverage, both leading causes of errors and omissions claims."
Finally, note that all of the claims in this workshop are true (i.e., they actually happened)…only the names have been changed and the situations somewhat embellished to protect the innocent (and guilty).
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Professional Development
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AAI 81, 82, 83
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