Latest Agencies Headlines
All the headlines from our Agencies Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Growing Your Property Casualty Agency
Jan 22 2006 // When you encounter an account you can’t competitively place, instead of declining to quote or expending extensive time searching for a viable market, refer the prospect to a competing producer who can easily write...
Closer Look: Producer Liability
Jan 22 2006 // Keeping up with increasing liability as clients expand Property/casualty insurance agents and brokers are being exposed to more lawsuits as they move into unfamiliar products, states and technologies, and as their own...
Spotlight: From Pinstripes to Prison Stripes
Jan 22 2006 // By Susan McKenna Once you get over the fear…you find that people are just people,” Michael “Mickey” Segal, 63, told an ABC-TV news anchor regarding concerns about other prison inmates in his new...
Spotlight: Counseling Buyers
Jan 22 2006 // Multiline Productivity Poll: Agents play key role in understanding risk Insurance buyers see increasing value from reducing their total cost of risk across multiple lines of commercial insurance, according to a new survey...
California insurance carriers spent the last part of December jumping through hoops to comply with the California Depart
Jan 22 2006 // Portable persistency discounts helped to encourage competitively priced products that promote comparison shopping. Amid the confusion surrounding the elimination of portable persistency discounts in California, we may have...
News Currents
Jan 22 2006 // Regulatory modernization tops industry’s legislative agenda for 2006 With the extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, passage of federal class action and crop insurance reform, enactment of asbestos reform in...
Excess, Surplus & Specialty
Jan 22 2006 // Main Street E&S: Why independent agents like backyard brokers In today’s business world, it’s rare to hear a live voice on the other end of a phone call. Most companies, small and large, have succumbed to...
CLOSER LOOK: Excess, Surplus & Specialty
Jan 22 2006 // XL, Rockhill and GMAC RE jockey for market share with established surplus lines writers Katrina-sized catastrophes put added pressure on admitted carriers, which increases the demand for greater capacity in excess and...
Fitch Predicts Stable Outlook for Broker Industry in 2006
Jan 20 2006 // New York-Chicago-based Fitch Ratings is predicting stability and growth for the broker industry in 2006, while admitting that earnings will be down in 2005 because of litigation connected to New York Attorney General Eliot...
AUGIE Launches Agency Survey
Jan 20 2006 // The ACORD-User Groups Information Exchange (AUGIE) reported its benchmark Agency Technology Survey is now available to complete and encourages independent insurance agents and brokers to participate. The Florida...
CII Survey Examines Changes in Broker/Insurer Relations
Jan 20 2006 // The U.K.’s Chartered Insurance Institute’s (CII) Faculty of Insurance Broking, in conjunction with Oracle, the enterprise software company, has issued a new study – ” Opinion Leader Research: Broker...
La. Agent Charged with Pocketing Customer Premiums
Jan 19 2006 // A Bogalusa, La., insurance agent was arrested and issued a cease and desist order for alleged felony theft and withholding of insurance premiums, the Louisiana Department of Insurance said. The DOI ordered Patricia...
Agents’ Game Plan Helped Save Contingent Commissions
Jan 18 2006 // Independent insurance agents approached the criticisms from New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other officials with a measured game plan that has worked to preserve contingency commissions in agencies across the...
Gallagher Joins RJF Agencies as Director of Marketing/Commercial Lines
Jan 18 2006 // Minnesota-based RJF Agencies Inc. reported that Tim Gallagher was hired as its director of Marketing/Commercial Lines. In this role, Gallagher will oversee the marketing of commercial insurance risks, design risk...
Big ‘I’ Katrina Relief Fund Donations Top $400,000
Jan 17 2006 // The Big “I” Katrina Relief Fund has awarded grants to more than 70 applicants from the Gulf Coast insurance community. With more than $400,000 in the fund from more than 470 contributors, the Big...
Lloyd’s Brokers Respond to Piracy Threats Against Ships’ Crews
Jan 17 2006 // Specialist intermediary Seacurus and Lloyd’s broker Cooper Gay have launched “CrewSEACURE,” a new type of marine cover underwritten within Lloyd’s, which addressees the rising instances of piracy,...
Newly Formed Mercator Risk Services Names Executive Appointments
Jan 17 2006 // Mercator Risk Services, the newly formed, independent wholesale insurance broker has named several senior leadership appointments. Michael S. Ryan has been named chief operating officer. In this role Ryan will be...
Barney & Barney’s Shea Elected President of IIBAA of San Diego
Jan 17 2006 // Steve Shea, account executive with the commercial insurance department at Barney & Barney has been elected president of the board of directors of the Independent Insurance Brokers & Agents Association of San...
Calif. Court Says Broker Owes Duty of Care to Third Party
Jan 16 2006 // California’s Second District Court of Appeals has decided that an insurance broker owed a legal duty of care to a third-party after an insurer refused to pay claims under an express policy exclusion. The case,...
Massachusetts Agent’s Body Found in Garage; Aronson Insurance Victim Shot to Death
Jan 15 2006 // An insurance agent, described by neighbors as friendly and generous, was fatally shot in the head when he parked his car next to his Newton office last Friday morning, authorities said. Edward Schiller, 39, of Framingham,...
