I received the below email message from a Farmers agent solicitor and I thought I would pass it on to the Farmers alumni on this thread for a good chuckle. "Great business relationships start with great support. As a Farmers Insurance® agency owner, you'll have the freedom to run your business ...

I received a solicitation email from Farmers today. I thought many of you would get a chuckle from the following passage: "Farmers®agency ownership may be the path to the life you deserve. Owning your own business, enriching yourself and living each day on your terms. Owning a Farmers Insurance...

You can add Mercury to the list of commission cutters. Their auto is now 14/12. Another slap to the face of the agent from Travelers, is their website: travelers.com. If any IAs are sending their clients to the Travelers website for information, they need to have their heads examined. The focus of t...

GMann: I stand by my initial article. I have no reason to lie about Hartford; we do a large volume of business with them. My comparisons are real and we've already forwarded the proof to our rep. His response was basically: "I feel terrible, but there's nothing I can do about it." I hope t...

Love this game: 1. Assuming that you like Hartford the best for your auto insurance, and given that you are good at selling yourself, would you really place your own auto insurance with your agency and pay 25% more for identical coverage with the same insurance company? 2. Do you think it's a good i...

Before you sell another Hartford auto policy, AARP or not, I challenge you to run a quote for your own autos, and then go to www.thehartford.com and get a direct quote. If you are like me, you will find that the Direct rate is at least 10% lower even after deducting for your commissions. I decided t...

Quinn: I'm living in the universe of standard insurers including Travelers, LIberty Mutual, Chubb, Grange, CNA, Erie, Zurich, State Auto, Hanover, Allied, and others who issue physical policies for accounts with five or six figure premiums. Perhaps you are living in the universe of specialty and sur...

One of the questions on the survey was: "What can we do to become a top three carrier in your office?"

The obvious answer: "Compensate us like a top three carrier."

Most insureds are spending thousands of dollars with us for their insurance. I think the least we could do is give them a paper copy of their insurance policies. Aside from Hartford, I haven't seen any other standard markets discontinue sending policies. The only carriers to go the PDF route to my k...

Speaking of the crystal ball for the next 5 years... Apparently Hartford agrees with the proposition that small commercial business has also become a commodity. They have decided to discontinue sending policies to agents. We are now forced to either push PDFs on our Hartford customers or act as prin...

I was very surprised that Travelers did not come up with a competitive rate to get agents interested in writing with them. They have very mediocre rates in Illinois. We have placed them on the "do not quote" list with the other commission cutters like Progressive and Foremost -- unless the...

Foremost (formerly Zurich Small Business), sent us a letter dated 4/28/14 announcing that it is "committed to providing consistently competitive and profitable commercial lines products." Wait for that other shoe to drop ... There it goes ... "For that reason, effective July 1, 2014, ...

The bad news is that it gives the other companies "permission" to also cut commissions. And it's already started: Mercury and Grange (long known as agent friendly companies) have announced cuts. Mercury is now 14 new and 12 renewal and starting next year Grange will be as low as 10 new /10...

I was absolutely shocked to received another $300 invoice from Zurich Small Business for their so-called 2014 "co-op" fee. ZSB has to be the only insurance company in history that charges you to be their agents. Despite the fact that we received our new Foremost commercial contract (withou...

Forum Reader, A fellow agent and I had the same discussion about always doing what's best for the customer when Progressive took a big commision cut several years ago. The other agent argued that an agent is always obliged to go with the lowest company, even if that company had a significantly lower...