Not sure how you get the job, probably just contact the Society in Austin, TX. The pay rate is around $1,200 for a full day or $600 for half a day. They also pay your travel expenses. That is not bad money for many, but for a good insurance agent, you could not afford to lose 2 days (travel to and f...

I am a 56 year old owner of an Independent Insurance agency. When in college in the mid 70s I thought I wanted to be an attorney. Got into law school and hated it. Kept sticking it out for 2 years before finally quitting, before getting a degree. My problems were (1) I did not like law. Thought it w...

Suggest you retain a good consultant. I recommend Chris Burand, in Pueblo, CO. His email is chris@burand-associates.com. He has experience in this area.

Stephen Bryant

I have a 3 location, 19 person agency. We have been AMS since 1994. We are currently AMS 360 Online. Have been for about 18 months now. We like it a lot. Our monthly user fee is $130 per employee. For the poster who was considering whether to use an in house server, or go online, I strongly recommen...

Not sure about Arizona, but in Tennessee they do not show up on your MVR. Photo tickets in Tennessee are not considered a criminal matter, but a civil matter. If you do not pay the ticket, they can sue you in civil court (may or may not) but cannot do anything in criminal court.

Employees making claims for Overtime pay can go back 2 years. As I noted previously, if you do not have timekeeping records, you will lose. The court/mediator will side with the employee. I have found that this is a sensitive issue with agency owners, because most are paying CSR and other inside sta...

Not sure where the previous poster is coming from regarding State law. The law that applies is Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which is a federal law. When it comes to a typical insurance agency, this one is not very difficult. See an attorney if you want to, but it's a fairly easy call. The followi...

The Accredited Advisor in Insurance (AAI) course, offered by the American Institute of CPCU, in Malvern, PA. There are 3 courses, and materials for each are around $150. You can also take an exam to achieve the AAI designation, if you like. The materials cover all aspects of P & C in quite a bit...

Few buyers use a multiple of revenues these days. A more common approach is a multiple of EBITDA (Earnings Before Income Tax, Depreciation and Amortization). This is basically pre-tax profit. Common multiples seen today are in the 4 to 7 times range. For a small agency with declining revenues, you w...

I have purchased 11 agencies over the last 15 years. In some cases, where the agency was in a city where I already had another agency, I simply merged it under my agency name. However, when I did that I had letterhead printed that listed every agency that makes up my "group", with the year...

I know a great Independent Agency owner in the Worchester area. Let me know if you want to contact him.

sbryant@herinsgrp.com

D sorry for the ruffled feathers. Your initial posting was basically "I no longer get phone calls from Prospects responding to my yellow page ad, newspaper ad and direct mail pieces" and wondering what has happened. My response was astonishment that anyone could operate like that in today'...

It is apparent from reading the initial message from D's Insurance Store that he/she is either primarily or exclusively a Personal Lines agent. It is also apparent that D is little more than a Commodity seller. Even the user name "D's Insurance Store" is a dead give away. My God People, is...

Volstrike, Point well taken, there are variations, based on location and agency size. I have always worked in the Southeast. For the past 20 years in an area with a population of around 500,000. I have also worked in large cities (Nashville and Tampa). I have owned my own agency for 20 years, but sp...

Hiring someone to get X dates and/or set appointments is the lazy man's way of operating. I pay my Producers to "produce". That includes everything from the first contact to closing the sale and retaining the account. Sure, they would love it if someone else would do their work for them, b...