Latest Agencies Headlines
All the headlines from our Agencies Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Broker Survey Shows 4Q Premiums Drop
Jan 24 2005 // More than 80 percent of small and large commercial property/casualty accounts and 90 percent of medium accounts found their insurance premiums either stable or down by as much as 20 percent during the fourth quarter of...
Back to the Basics
Jan 24 2005 // E&S Industry Returns to Familiar Ground Neither wind, nor rain nor the dark cloud of standard carriers returning to the marketplace will keep excess and surplus insurance writers from maintaining profitability. From...
Court Knocks Out Mass. Limits on Banks’ Sales of Insurance
Jan 24 2005 // Banks should have an easier time selling insurance in Massachusetts thanks to a recent federal court ruling granting supremacy to federal rules over more restrictive state laws governing banks’ sales of insurance...
N.Y. Weighed Contingent Fee Issue Years Before Spitzer Investigation
Jan 24 2005 // While it did not begin boiling over until last October when charges were brought against Marsh, the controversy over brokerage contingent fees has actually been simmering for more than a half dozen years in New York...
N.Y. Superintendent: A Handshake and Heads-Up
Jan 24 2005 // The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York looks forward to working with New York’s next Superintendent of Insurance and is hopeful the major strides begun by his predecessor will continue to benefit...
Heath Turns the Corner as Colemont Insurance Brokers
Jan 24 2005 // Name May Be Changing but Company’s Service, Business Practices Stay the Same At the corner of Cole and Monticello Avenues near the Highland Park area of Dallas, an excess and surplus insurance brokerage was...
Buyers Be Where’
Jan 24 2005 // Where are all the buyers? Regulators and other officials note that the voices of insurance buyers are conspicuously absent from the current controversy over brokerage compensation. They say that few if any risk managers or...
The Drive’
Jan 24 2005 // Have you been watching the NFL playoffs? As a devotee of our country’s first national pastime–baseball–I confess to not having paid very close attention. To me, football is just the dead air on...
Insurance Marketing and Communications
Jan 24 2005 // How to Produce Client Seminars As we develop our marketing and communications plans for 2005, one of the most effective ways a broker can provide a customized service to its clients is by producing educational seminars on...
Outsourcing Allows Agents and Brokers to Focus on Core Competencies
Jan 24 2005 // Increased Customer Satisfaction, Reduced Overhead When an operational limit is hit, insurance agents and brokers often turn to outsourcers. They may need to increase their physical capacity to handle new customer...
A Brief History of Contingent Commission Agreements
Jan 24 2005 // Contingent commissions first appeared in the 1960s when claims were rising much faster than the rate of inflation and insurance companies cut agent commissions on premiums. To make up for this loss of revenue, carriers...
Westfield Carefully Weighs Wider Midwest Move
Jan 24 2005 // Ohio-based property/casualty carrier Westfield Insurance is carefully weighing its expansion with plans to appoint more agents to its middle market distribution force. Champaign, Ill.-based Agency Relationship Manager Ken...
How to Find New Markets
Jan 24 2005 // For nine years, Insurance Journal has published the annual Directory of Excess, Surplus and Specialty Markets. This issue is a resource for independent agents and brokers to help them find the markets they need. The print...
Insurance Marketing and Communications
Jan 24 2005 // How to produce client seminars that work. As we develop our marketing and communications plans for 2005, one of the most effective ways a broker can provide a customized service to its clients is by producing educational...
SIAAC Welcomes New Member Condotta, Merrett
Jan 21 2005 // The Strategic Independent Agents Alliance Canada (SIAAC), the country’s largest network of partnering independent insurance brokerages, announced that Condotta, Merrett & Company Insurance Brokers of Niagara...
Connecticut AG Sues Marsh, Ace Financial in Broker Commission Case
Jan 21 2005 // Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Friday sued insurance broker Marsh & McLennan Inc., and insurance provider ACE Financial Solutions Inc., for a scheme in which ACE reportedly paid Marsh a secret...
State Farm Agent Named Ind. Commissioner
Jan 21 2005 // Indiana’s new Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has named W. Harold Calloway, a State Farm agent, as the state’s new insurance commissioner. Calloway, 58, takes over an agency with a $15 million budget and 75...
Agents Continue to Oppose Broker Disclosure Model
Jan 21 2005 // The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, the nation’s largest insurance trade association, has addressed its most recent concerns over the proposed Subsection (B) to Compensation Disclosure...
Insurers Regulator’s Broker Dealer Model Laudable But Still Too Broad
Jan 20 2005 // National Association of Insurance Commissioners efforts to address concerns surrounding broker compensation continue to be over-broad, going beyond the single problem that has been defined, according to comments filed...
Former Mo. Big ‘I’ Leader Appointed Insurance Director
Jan 20 2005 // Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt announced the appointment of W. Dale Finke to head the Missouri Department of Insurance. Finke is CEO and president of Corporate Insurance Management in St. Louis. He was president of the Missouri...
