Insurance Agencies of the Future
I love art museums. Even better are those with great sculptures and awesome architecture. Crystal Bridges meets all of these expectations and was truly a great experience. When I saw a piece on TV about this new museum last year I knew we had to visit. It is located in Greenwood, AR which is about 2 hours north of where Gene’s oldest daughter and her family live .
Yesterday I attended one of Mike Wise‘s Social Tech Boot Camps. When I added this event to our calendar, my husband asked why I needed to attend such a workshop? After all, I spend a lot of time involved in social technology, I work with agencies on their social media plans and best practices. The majority of the attendees a this particular session were involved in benefits coverages. That brought a whole different perspective for me based on their views verses those of the property and casualty sector of the industry.
I recently posted a review on Dictapad for iPad Review. I wasn’t even aware of this app until a friend of my needed a solution for transcribing interviews. I went in search of such apps, read about them and felt that this was the best one available. I have since used the app to transcribe a recording from my Livescribe pen. It does exactly what you want it to. I knew that the post would be interesting to a very small audience. I wanted to show on a bigger scale that there are lots of solutions out there, you just need to search them out.
Part of what I do on a daily basis is write best practices documentation. While many say that perfection is not needed, I disagree in this instance. A big issue I have with documentation is consistency in terms. For example; you may refer to an insurance company as an insurance company or an insurance carrier. I am editing someone else’s document today. So far I have seen insurance company referred to as:
All of these were used in the same document to refer to a type of entity. A previous employer of mine taught me to always use Insurance Carrier to denote the Insurance Company. I am also specific about your insured. They may or may not actually be insured. I refer to them as your client. If they are a prospect and the workflow applies to them then they are so described.
My friend and technology guru, Steve Anderson, was an early adopter of Evernote. After a meeting in which he praised its uses I signed up. I tried it out from time-to-time. And, alas I abandoned it. Every time we would be at a meeting, I would say, “I just don’t get why I would use Evernote.” He would patiently explain why he found it such a big part of his daily routine and how it met so many of his needs. This has been going on for at least two years.
Now I wasn’t concerned about my information being in the cloud. I am a huge believer in the cloud. I work with agencies that use online agency management systems. I am a big user of Dropbox. Every document, picture and tune I have is in my Dropbox file. But a couple of weeks ago I found how Evernote could benefit me. What has changed?
Recently a friend asked if I was aware of an app for iPad for transcribing recorded interviews. He advised that the files could be MP3 or .wav files. For the younger crowd we used to have dictaphone machines. There was a foot pedal that let you stop the tap, back up and restart the tap. A check in Google shows that, in fact, dictaphone machines of a newer version are still available. However, that would not come anywhere close to meeting my friend’s needs. Everything for iPad my friend had tried didn’t have these capabilities. I began searching the iTunes apps. I read through several and settled on Dictapad as the best tool for the task at hand.
Dictapad by Panchromatic, LLC
It is not uncommon when working with my clients to find a whole bunch of follow-ups or un-posted items in their agency management system. Such is the case at one of my clients. During the committee meeting discussing the standards and process for ordering and checking endorsements we found that there were in excess of 100 un-posted Policy Change Requests (PCR). There was the usual moan and statement, yet another backlog to solve.
I read a lot of business focused books. Or let me say, I start a lot of business books that I don’t find compelling enough to finish. Not so the new book by Michael Hyatt – PLATFORM: Get Notice in A Noisy World. About two weeks ago I saw Mike post a twitter about applying to join his launch team for this new book. I was attending a meeting about branding and already on knowledge overload, but this was too tempting. 794 people applied. I feel really lucky and honored to become a part of this team. You can see the PLATFORM Launch Team here.
This morning I am reading a great article from “Property Casualty 360” titled As Older Agents Try to Adapt, Younger Agents Want to Be Heard. Over the years I have worked in a number of firms that were family owned with children becoming part of the firm or small firms adding young producers. Even though today’s internet and social media issues did not exist, some of the same conversations did exist. Those of you that were the “young” guys then are the “old” guys now. You need to think back and take stock. I heard more than one of your bosses say you would never make it. In one agency I worked in for a number of years I saw two things happen that so defines such differences and discussions. The time period 1970 – 1974. A lifetime ago right? I think you will recognize that similar issues exist today.
The Nonconformist Son – The owner’s middle son joined the firm after returning from his time in the military. The middle son had a great education, life experiences, a wide range of connections and many friends. Actually not so different from the Dad. Yet their work visions and habits were very different. The three of us actually shared a workspace so I heard almost all of their conversations. Many were very uncomfortable. The Dad was very successful. A diligent task master. Ethics beyond reproach. A great teacher. A really great mentor to his staff. However, not all of that transferred to his son. He somehow expected his son to understand how things were done and just get too it.
The son’s approach was much more his own style. Having lunch with his prospects and clients. Playing golf and tennis with them, etc. I’ve learned over the years that some of these great differences come from the Dad being influenced by the Great Depression and WWII and the son being living in a much different time period. Ultimately, the son left the firm and moved onto a very successful career outside the insurance industry.
The Loss of a Major Account – Same agency owner here. Of course the agency owner was personal friends with the owners of his major accounts. In the early 70s most of the business in our area were family owned instead of being corporations with boards of directors and owners located elsewhere. This particular account had many family members involved in the ownership and daily operation of the business. We also wrote the personal lines business of almost this entire family along with numerous employees of the firm.
The senior member and personal friend of my boss passed away after a short illness. The line of succession in the firm had been decided a number of years and the Dad of that firm had been grooming the son so that such a transition would mean no interruption in the business. About three months after the passing of the firm’s owner the son walked into the agency with all of their firm’s insurance policies in his hand. He sat at my boss’s desk and signed the front of each policy with his name, a request to cancel and the date. It was a very somber day in our office.
A few weeks later when I was processing the return premium invoices my boss and I had a conversation about this. I asked what he thought had happened. We had always made sure that anyone connected with the firm was well taken care of. There had been no negative claim issues. No apparent problems. His reply to me was that he had not taken the time or thought it necessary to build a relationship with the son that was now in the senior position. He thought that would automatically transfer from Dad to Son.
The Son had a friend also in the insurance agency business. The friend had solicited their business for several years. Once the Son was in the senior position he found that he preferred doing business with his peer and friend instead of someone he didn’t know all that well.
Senior agency owners and managers. Take note here. While these examples are from the 70s, I think there are many similar stories today. The only difference, more tools with which to engage prospects and clients. Maybe the young people in your firm should be your mentors.
Help them set goals, be sure they know your agency’s core beliefs and ethics and get out of their way.
What challenges are you facing one either side of this issue?
