Latest Training Development Headlines

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

IICF Northeast Division Awards 16 New Grants Totaling $879,000

Dec 12 2013 // The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) Northeast division announced 16 charitable grants at its seventh annual benefit dinner on Wednesday. The total amount of the grants is $879,000. Lisa Tepper, chair of the...

The Agency Producer Activity Gap and How to Close It: Survey

Dec 11 2013 // Agency producers are not spending enough of their time on the sales-related activities that they and their managers think they ideally should. Instead they are spending more time than they think they should on...

Obama Product Safety Chief Tenenbaum Returns to South Carolina

Dec 6 2013 // After four years in Washington as the nation’s products safety czar, Inez Tenenbaum is coming home to the Columbia area, her life changed in ways large and small. “Now I’m always giving advice unsolicited...

Texas Department of Insurance Proposes Navigator Rules for Health Exchange

Dec 3 2013 // The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) has proposed rules relating to federal health insurance exchange navigators. The rules propose criminal background checks, privacy training, proof of identity and evidence of...

Insurance Technologies Corp. to Hold First User Group Conference in April

Dec 3 2013 // Carrollton, Texas-based Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC), a provider of agency marketing, rating and management software and services, announced that AgentCon, its user group conference, will be held for the first...

E&O Insights: How to Minimize E&O When Selling Employee Benefits

Dec 2 2013 // Agencies involved in the sales and service of employee benefits know that the issue of errors and omissions (E&O) is very real — and that proper steps must be taken to minimize that exposure. Many in the employee...

Transforming Your Customer Experiences in a Lean Environment

Dec 2 2013 // Toyota Motor Cars, Toyota Production Systems, and Taichi Ohno have nearly perfected lean manufacturing techniques. TPS has been in constant pursuit of perfection since the concept of lean was introduced by Sakichi Toyoda...

Obamacare’s Small Business Exchange Site Delayed 1 Year

Dec 1 2013 // Small businesses won’t be able to use the federal government’s health insurance website until November 2014 in most U.S. states, the latest delay for the Obama administration’s health-care system...

Missteps in Employee Hiring Costly for Agencies: MarshBerry

Nov 25 2013 // For most lines of insurance business, commission income is growing and most insurance agents and brokers expect profits to be similar or better in 2013 compared to 2012. That’s according to the 28th Annual Market...

Texas Insurer Group Awards Fall Scholarships to 20 Students

Nov 18 2013 // Twenty students at four Texas universities were recently awarded a total of $38,000 in academic scholarships from the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) Education Foundation. The students attend St. Mary’s University...

40 Years On, Mount Kisco Child Care Center Serves Working Families

Nov 13 2013 // Fragile. At risk. Low income. Recent immigrant. These terms describe some of the families whose children attend Mount Kisco Child Care Center in the northern suburbs of New York City. But another term that describes these...

Doctor Training Questioned in Wake of Robotic-Surgery Deaths, Injuries

Nov 11 2013 // A rising number of reports about deaths, injuries and malfunctions linked to the robotic surgery system made by Intuitive Surgical Inc. may pressure hospitals to bolster training for doctors using the $1.5 million...

Industries Confront Louisiana’s Skilled Labor Gap

Nov 6 2013 // A Harahan manufacturing company has had to recruit outside Louisiana for skilled trade workers. The Laitram Corp. isn’t alone in its difficulty finding trained workers for such jobs as electricians and...

PLUS Conference: Global Risks, Governance and Hypocrisy

Nov 5 2013 // America’s European allies are being hypocritical in their complaints about the U.S. spying on them because they all have their own surveillance programs, according to two former top officials in the Clinton...

Talent War Continues: XL Hires AIG’s Miller to Oversee Global P/C Claims

Nov 4 2013 // XL Group Plc, the insurer led by Chief Executive Officer Mike McGavick, hired David Miller as senior vice president and head of claims for international property/casualty coverage. Miller joins from American International...

How to Motivate and Inspire Your Employees: Part 2

Oct 28 2013 // This post is part of a series on insurance marketing and training sponsored by Astonish. In the first part of this series, we looked at the importance of setting goals when it comes to motivating your employees. Another,...

Hard Work Is Not the Only Key to Producer Success

Oct 21 2013 // Insurance sales success can be like a game of tennis. Many summers ago I fell in love with the game of tennis. For the next six years, I played every day possible. One of my limitations was that living in Colorado, winter...

Recruiting and Retention in the New Economy

Oct 21 2013 // We made it! We survived the economic instability of the past few years and have more than rebounded. The insurance industry is well ahead of the greater economy; and the picture painted by our labor market is much...

2nd Worker Dies At 49ers Stadium Construction Site In California

Oct 16 2013 // All work has stopped at the new $1.2 billion San Francisco 49ers showcase stadium while police, firefighters and state workplace safety officials investigate a second deadly workplace accident there in less than four...

For-Profit College Company Sued By California

Oct 15 2013 // California’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit accusing a for-profit college company of misrepresenting job placement rates, false advertising and other deceptive practices to lure low-income residents to take out...