Latest Agencies Headlines
All the headlines from our Agencies Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Kephart Joins IIAT as E&O Marketing Specialist
Oct 17 2011 // Gunnar Kephart has joined The Independent Insurance Agents of Texas as E&O marketing specialist. In this newly created role, Kephart will advise agents on errors and omissions issues and assist with their E&O...
The Entrepreneurial Spirit: Turning Ideas into Reality
Oct 17 2011 // What is an entrepreneur? The exact characteristics that comprise an individual with the ability to bring new ideas to the marketplace and foster their success may be difficult to define. But it’s not much of a...
People
Oct 17 2011 // Wells Publishing Inc. has named Young Ha as its new East editor for its flagship Insurance Journal online and print property/casualty insurance publications. Ha, based in New York, will cover the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic...
Predictive Analytics Being Used to Manage Agencies, Curb Fraud
Oct 17 2011 // Earlier this year, experts at WallStreet & Technology (wallstreetandtech.com) identified predictive analytics and cloud computing as two of six hot technologies that will transform the insurance industry in 2011 and...
Why Agents Need Workers’ Comp Manuals
Oct 17 2011 // Workers’ compensation is a game of rules. Like all other games, from Monopoly to football, if you don’t know the rules, you’re going to find it difficult to win. We don’t normally think of insurance...
Washington Insurance Agent Who Sold Fake Policies Sentenced
Oct 17 2011 // AWashington insurance agent who sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in fake business-insurance policies has been sentenced to more than two years in prison and ordered to pay back $532,659 in restitution. Brenda...
Real Estate Professionals: Exposed & Unaware
Oct 17 2011 // As real estate professionals know well, most signs point to slow progress in real estate industry growth. Professionals are left to manage their costs, make cuts where possible, keep up-to-date on industry trends, fight...
High Hopes for High Tech
Oct 17 2011 // Tech Talk with Reid French, Applied Systems’ New CEO Insurance agencies are under pressure to quickly adopt new technologies in order to keep up with competitors, according to a newcomer to the insurance industry who...
More Optimism, but Plenty of Controversy Surrounds Mortgage Broker Errors and Omissions Market Segment
Oct 17 2011 // Insurance agents serving the mortgage broker marketplace see some signs of improvement but they aren’t yet jumping for joy. The mortgage brokers error and omissions (E&O) market became severely strained when the...
Nationwide, Harleysville CEOs Say Merger All About Growth
Oct 17 2011 // The merger of insurer Nationwide Mutual with regional carrier Harleysville Mutual is all about growth, not only for the companies but also for their independent agents, according to the CEOs of the two...
Volunteerism Feeds Employees’ Need to Serve
Oct 17 2011 // “It was like I gave her a million dollars.” That’s how Sean Ramalho of Travelers described the reaction from a woman to whom he gave a blanket on a bitterly cold winter day while he was volunteering at...
Nevada Young Agents Group Grows the Old-Fashioned Way
Oct 17 2011 // The Nevada Young Agents Committee started out small with a young insurance agent collecting and passing out a few cards around the state, and it’s now a rapidly growing organization that has garnered a bit of...
Who Is Reid French and Why Is He Saying Nice Things About Insurance?
Oct 17 2011 // Applied Systems’ new CEO Reid French is no stranger to technology, having worked for several software makers over the past 15 years. One job was with a company called Six Solutions that sold software for professional...
How Agency Technology Drives Profitable Growth
Oct 17 2011 // Profitability and growth continue to be the drivers of independent insurance agency valuations, and leading agencies around the country are using new ways to produce profitable growth. “You cannot have strong...
People
Oct 17 2011 // Higginbotham & Associates has promoted commercial insurance broker Mike Bateman to its managing director group for 2012. Bateman, who joined Higginbotham’s Dallas office in 2004, was promoted from account...
E&O Spotlight: Insuring Commercial Properties? Important Issues to Watch For
Oct 17 2011 // Most agencies write some degree of commercial insurance. There is a good chance that insuring the building is part of the overall program for these commercial exposures. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the following...
New York Officially Combines Regulatory Agencies
Oct 17 2011 // New York Department of Financial Services, the new department that combines the state’s insurance and banking regulators, was officially launched on Monday, Oct. 3. Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky...
What’s New, And Not So New, in Technology?
Oct 17 2011 // Cool Apps There are apps available on smartphones and tablet devices today that agents and brokers utilize for live streaming (Ustream), scanning documents (JotNot), conferencing (GoToMeeting and others), VoIP calls...
People
Oct 17 2011 // Wells Publishing Inc. has named Don Jergler as its new West editor for its flagship Insurance Journal online and print property/casualty insurance publications. Jergler, based in California, will cover the western states...
Penn.-based Insurance Agents & Brokers Hires Brinjac
Oct 14 2011 // Insurance Agents & Brokers Services Group in Pennsylvania appointed Lauren Brinjac as government affairs director. In her role, Brinjac will oversee legislative advocacy efforts of the organization throughout...
