What is your biggest pain as an agent?

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Jacobiv
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Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:18 pm

What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by Jacobiv »

I'm curious to know what the biggest pains for an agent in their day to day work......
jtownagent
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Location: New England

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by jtownagent »

1) Billing questions, non payment cancelations, reinstatement request of bad pay clients.
2) Binder requests from mortgage companies that continually sell mortgages
3) Company underwriting appetites or pricing that changes dramatically
4) Marketing reps that bring no value
5) Any one that does not respond to a phone call or e-mail request in a timely manner
JohnnyLaw
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by JohnnyLaw »

My problems are the same as town agent. My only add would be IT issues from standpoint of systems failing and time to get back up.
jtownagent
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Location: New England

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by jtownagent »

Johnnylaw...you may have hit the nail on the head with that one
d's insurance store
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by d's insurance store »

How about the lenders/title companies that won't accept the Acord...only the finalized dec page for a refi, and then once you've hustled and disruppted the policy, never closes the loan AND never informs you the deal was cancelled. You tend to find out when the insured gets the insurance demand from the lender that was never paid off and is now threatening to place forced coverage?
jennas
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by jennas »

Being an insurance agent is like working with a fire. Everyday you find a new challenge waiting for you. Dealing with clients is the biggest challenge. Keeping up with the taxes, expenses, employees and still trying to meet the clients needs is not easy. Recently, i came across an interesting post explaining the roles of the professionals in this field. You all may find it worth reading too. The link is as follows:
http://www.allkare.co.uk/_blog/Allkare_ ... _assessor/
paulbennings
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by paulbennings »

GREAT topic!

1. Carrier/GA underwriters that don't respond to emails/phone calls.

2. Customers that can pay every bill but their insurance bill.

3. Banks and their sometimes idiotic requests on EOIs (we deal with HOAs).

4. Unscheduled drop in visits from Marketing reps, that seem to always occur when you're up to your eyeballs in work.
aylundmark
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Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:37 am

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by aylundmark »

I'm not an Agent nor broker. However, I found the topic is funny !
I've been in the industry for over 20 years, mostly in Carriers' side and MGA, include a little experience in Agent side.
It does not matter which side one is in, people should remember that Insurance is a "Service" business.
You are compensated with Commission from your services.
You are the "bridge" among carriers, MGAs and your clients.
All those Underwriting questions, Payment notice, Cancellations, Endorsement requests -
these are the (Insurance agency / broker) Job descriptions.
without all of above, Insurance carriers would not need to pay commission to broker / agent.
Underwriter not responding, - why not send your complains to the Marketing person., utilize the Marketing Reps. is a smart way to do.
At Underwriting standpoints, there are many non-responsive from brokers' side too, they often not respond to questions from missing information on applications and then complained quotations process are slow..
The way I saw this industry as a whole, Guys, we are living in the "love - hate " environment, and it will be hard to survive without one another.
Unless you can change it, otherwise, may be "change the way you think about it" as someone said.
jasmeenkhan988
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Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:28 am

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by jasmeenkhan988 »

paulbennings wrote:GREAT topic!

1. Carrier/GA underwriters that don't respond to emails/phone calls.

2. Customers that can pay every bill but their insurance bill.

3. Banks and their sometimes idiotic requests on EOIs (we deal with HOAs).

4. Unscheduled drop in visits from Marketing reps, that seem to always occur when you're up to your eyeballs in work.
hahaha Customers that can pay every bill but their insurance bill. its really a pain full dude.
rodgwag
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Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:30 am
Location: Southern CA

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by rodgwag »

I'm not an Agent nor broker. However, I found the topic is funny !
I've been in the industry for over 20 years, mostly in Carriers' side and MGA, include a little experience in Agent side.
It does not matter which side one is in, people should remember that Insurance is a "Service" business.
You are compensated with Commission from your services.
You are the "bridge" among carriers, MGAs and your clients.
All those Underwriting questions, Payment notice, Cancellations, Endorsement requests -
these are the (Insurance agency / broker) Job descriptions.
without all of above, Insurance carriers would not need to pay commission to broker / agent.
Underwriter not responding, - why not send your complains to the Marketing person., utilize the Marketing Reps. is a smart way to do.
At Underwriting standpoints, there are many non-responsive from brokers' side too, they often not respond to questions from missing information on applications and then complained quotations process are slow..
The way I saw this industry as a whole, Guys, we are living in the "love - hate " environment, and it will be hard to survive without one another.
Unless you can change it, otherwise, may be "change the way you think about it" as someone said.
We are paid commission by the insurance company or MGA because we close the sale ( BECAUSE LORD KNOWS THEY CAN'T) NOT because we service the policy. Servicing the policy is paid for by the client in the form of broker fees or customer loyalty. We actually tell all of our clients to call the insurance company directly for service and to only call us if they want to switch or buy another product.
Rodgwag
lonestar
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by lonestar »

rod, do you think it is advantageous to conditon clients to deal directly with insurance companies / call centers? By encouraging this behavior, you are speeding up the mindset of the clients to be: "Why deal with an agent when you can deal direct?"
rodgwag
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Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:30 am
Location: Southern CA

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by rodgwag »

Not at all, people expect a good insurance company to have its own customer service and retention continues to be great. We are sales people not baby sitters; this is the future.
Rodgwag
JohnnyLaw
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by JohnnyLaw »

Rodrag, Congratulations if you are writing commercial insurance with this method. Wish I could, I have one account that requires 150 certs. of Insurance per year (happy to have it though). Are you contracting out this type of service? If so where??
rodgwag
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Location: Southern CA

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by rodgwag »

Rodrag, Congratulations if you are writing commercial insurance with this method. Wish I could, I have one account that requires 150 certs. of Insurance per year (happy to have it though). Are you contracting out this type of service? If so where??
Personal lines customer service is handled by the carrier when ever possible. For now, commercal accounts of any size are charged a broker fee with a $400 minimum.
Rodgwag
lonestar
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Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?

Post by lonestar »

rodgwag, I am with you, as far as I wish I did not have to do any service work. Keep in mind carriers do not like to pay agents anyway, and certainly I believe they are constantly looking at the bottom dollar cost they are paying agents for renewal service commissions as it is. But by heaping more and more service work on the company, and training your client's behavior to more and more to deal directly with the companies(Which, by the way, is exactly what the companies want, in order to eventually bypass the agents completely. Ex: Esurance from Allstate, 21st Century from Farmers, Progressive direct, Geico Direct, etc) they may decide to start cutting our renewal commissions. Travelers and Safeco have already taken steps in Texas this year, to reduce commissions on monoline home policies from 15% to 10%. But I think the vast majority of agents who would like to keep our jobs for the next 20 years do not want to accelerate the company's or the client's thought process, even if we are headed that way already. Look what happened to the Travel agent's. Can you say "Priceline"? By encouraging our clients to deal direct, and heaping more and more service work on the insurance companies, we may just get our wish of no more service work, but also, no more service commissions. We may one day wake up and the home and auto business may be like writing life insurance. Commisson for the sale the first year, but no renewal commission if we are not in fact "servicing" our clients. Just sayin', it is worth thinking about.
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