Just wanted everyone to rest easy…Santa and the entire operation is fully insured. The elves took out key person life insurance on Santa…just in case he slips on one of those high pitched roofs after drinking the spiked milk you guys tend to leave out. And of course the elves are all covered for wor...

The insurance commissioner in Hawaii told me they will not allow us to make any kind of charge for a credit card transaction, fyi. You may want to check with your state commissioner's office before going down this road. The profit margin on P & C is already so thin, there is no way we can make t...

Most states say that you can split commissions with another agent as long as that agent has the correct license for the line of coverage you want to split commissions on...and crop insurance is simply the P & C license so if both parties carry that license, you should be fine. You can also easil...

I'm looking for some ideas on how to compensate or set up an incentive plan or contest that can include the entire staff of our agency rather than just an individual producer. Some way to really encourage the staff to look for new business leads, and if we end up writing them, a good way to reward t...

It's really all about building relationships...and that starts from the producer level, with introductions. I disagree with the comments about not wanting to answer questions or talk to the customer once the sale has been made. It's about directing the service calls to the service staff, and saving ...

I have the same problem going on right now...one client is a Pest Control Co., the other is a Plumbing Contractor. No common ownership. They have a new lease with both entities listed and are sharing space. To further complicate the situation, one of office staff works for both entities. We can, of ...

We've been "paperless" for going on 6 years now, but my pet peeve is the incoming paper. I wish some of our carriers would hurry this process along. We receive pages and pages and pages of policies and endorsements daily from some of our carriers, and now with the federal laws on privacy, ...

I loved the analogy with auto maintenance, Kevin! Here in Hawaii, we have a mandatory health care plan for employees working over 20 hrs/week. I've heard a lot of discussion in the news about how Hawaii already has a solution. But what they don't talk about is how that really hits the small business...

We did some serious looking at other systems, including Hawksoft (we are currently on TAM) and if I had a mostly personal lines agency and didn't have a lot of producers paid on commission, I think we would have gone with Hawksoft. There are a lot of great features and ease of use nearly sold me...b...

If only every carrier we do business with would offer agreed value clauses, life would be simple. But the reality is...they don't. We do the best we can to obtain the broadest coverage possible for the client, but the carriers over here still call the shots and they are not as open-minded about cove...

Interesting comments...I have to say I totally agree with Big Dog on this one. I'm also on Facebook to network with my friends, not to hunt for business prospects nor do I pay any attention to their advertisements. I'm too busy looking at all the new photos my niece posted...you get my drift. One th...

We've been looking hard at the Hawksoft system and I've yet to find anyone who can give me specific details as to how this works for commercial clients with a lot of agency billed business, and on the accounting side even on the direct bill business, we pay producers commissions on each transaction....

aloha...well, Scott, I'm sorry about your bias...but I have a different opinion. I'm an agent and I've been in the business on the agency side for 31 years. When I started, CPCU was a big deal as it was all there was . I did take all the insurance related courses (yes, I know at some level they are ...

We send the evidence but clearly state on the certificate, "coverage will be placed when premium has been paid" and this seems to work with all the lenders. Then we just document our agency management system and when and if payment comes in, we bind coverage.

I've commented on this thread before and will say it again...if you aren't paperless, you're going backwards. We're a medium sized agency and have been paperless for over 4 years. It was a challenge to scan everything initially, but at this point, it's a simple process. We have a paper management sy...