Latest Agencies Headlines

All the headlines from our Agencies Topic Page, ordered by recency.

How Carriers, Agents Can Adapt As Small Commercial Buyers Move Online

Jun 27 2013 //

Ames & Gough Names Senior Broker in Virginia Office

Jun 27 2013 // Ames & Gough, an insurance broker and risk management consultant serving design professionals, law firms, associations/non-profits and other professional service firms, appointed Allison Barefoot as assistant vice...

Ex-Kansas Insurance Agent Accused of Stealing $2M

Jun 27 2013 // Federal prosecutors have charged a former Kansas insurance agent with stealing nearly $2 million from policyholders. The U.S. attorney’s office says a 51-count indictment unsealed June 25 alleges 41-year-old Jason...

How Should Insurance Agencies use Twitter?

Jun 26 2013 // This post is part of a series on insurance marketing and training sponsored by Astonish. Twitter is a social media platform that all insurance agencies should be using in this day and age. Why? Because it is free to use,...

Safeco Begins Selling Personal Lines Insurance Products in Massachusetts

Jun 26 2013 // Safeco Insurance, a Liberty Mutual Insurance company, announced this week it began selling its personal lines insurance products in Massachusetts this month. This is the first time Safeco Insurance products are available...

Social Media Is Here to Stay, Texas P/C Professionals Say

Jun 26 2013 // The value of social media as a tool for marketing and selling property/casualty insurance may be a matter of debate but one thing is for certain: While the nature of social media may be evolving, it’s not going...

EPLI in Southern California Playing ‘Hard’ to Get

Jun 25 2013 // Employment practices in California is a known and growing concern for insurers, agents and employers, and that concern has some carriers ramping up rates dramatically or quietly pulling back from the area, say those...

Insurance Agencies CAN Take Advantage of Image-based Social Media!

Jun 25 2013 // This post is part of a series on insurance marketing and training sponsored by Astonish. We’ve been hearing it for a long time now – insurance agencies need to adapt to the modern consumer in order to survive. This...

Relationships, Expertise Drive Success in Texas E&S Marketplace

Jun 21 2013 // During the past 20 to 30 years typical business dealings between wholesale insurance brokers and retail agents have evolved from being purely transactional experiences to those that are highly dependent upon relationships...

Positioning with Companies as the Market Changes

Jun 21 2013 // A huge amount of press has been devoted to how important price is to insurance buyers — and it clearly is. But this is not specific to insurance. Price is a key factor in almost all buying decisions, excluding medical...

Market Forces, Technology Transforming P/C Agents’ Role: McKinsey

Jun 19 2013 // A report this month from consulting firm McKinsey & Company says market forces and technology are changing the role of the agent in the property/casualty insurance distribution. The report, titled “Agents of the...

Combined Agents of America Elects New 2013 Leadership

Jun 19 2013 // Combined Agents of America LLC (CAA), based in Austin, Texas, has elected an new management committee for 2013-14, led by Chairman Bill Kliewer. CAA member agencies are located in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. Each CAA...

Why Restaurant Franchises Make Good Program Business

Jun 19 2013 // One industry segment ideal for the program market and somewhat immune to the effects of a battered economy is the fast-food, multi-unit restaurant franchise industry, the experts say. The larger a company grows, the slower...

Brown & Brown Expands ECC Brand, Names Division CEO

Jun 18 2013 // Florida-based national insurance agency Brown & Brown Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, ECC Insurance Brokers Inc., announced that its excess-and-surplus lines professional liability products will now be marketed...

Insurance Journal Co-Sponsors MarshBerry Market & Financial Survey

Jun 18 2013 // MarshBerry, in partnership with Insurance Journal, has launched its 28th Annual Market & Financial Outlook Survey. This exclusive survey compiles anonymous general agency information along with financial, market,...

Banks Urge Cross-Selling Insurance, Loans to Wealthy But Brokers Resist

Jun 18 2013 // Scrambling to plug revenue holes created by crackdowns on credit card fees and falling brokerage commissions, big U.S. banks are pushing a strategy they’ve tried with limited success in the past – cross-selling...

The Art of Communication in the Modern Era, All Is Not Lost

Jun 17 2013 // The following is a fictional communication that in reality could be taking place in your office today. Retail Agent: I nd a qte asap on this prop (I need a quote as soon as possible on this property) Broker: addy and val...

4 Strategies to Make Producer Lifecycle Management a Priority

Jun 17 2013 // Maintaining a top-notch sales organization is harder than ever. One key reason is the growing challenge of keeping up with state and federal insurance regulations that focus on sales. The multiple tasks involved –...

Most Insurance Agencies Say Technology Helped Fiscal Growth: Survey

Jun 14 2013 // The majority of insurance agencies (77 percent) directly attribute their fiscal growth during 2012-2013 to the use of technology, according to a new industry survey. The survey, conducted by Vertafore at this year’s...

Shortcuts to Social Media: Top 4 Resources for Agents

Jun 13 2013 // The following article is a guest post by InsuranceJournal.tv contributor Rick Morgan, chair of the Agents Council for Technology (ACT) Web 2.0 workgroup. Rick is also SVP of Aartrijk (a branding firm serving...