Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are just some of the tools agencies will need to use for better communication with millennials.  Adriane Little of The Willey Agency in Nags Head shared with us how their agency used Facebook to inform clients about Hurricane Irene.  During the storm, she posted updates about the strength of the storm and how to file a claim.  Many of their customers have secondary homes on the Outer Banks and were pleased with this on demand information.

Bryan Miranda of Darden Miranda Insurance Associates in Fayetteville told about how he regularly blogs on insurance issues to help educate his clients. Karl Sherrill of Senn Dunn in Greensboro shared some great insight into the world of LinkedIn. Producers can use LinkedIn to establish a warmer introduction to prospects and help inform clients about the producer’s knowledge of insurance from recommendations. Cindy Donaldson of The Founders Group in Connecticutt spoke about the usage of Twitter, YouTube and mobile applications.  Her knowledge of social media has helped to engage their customers and increase retention. 

One of the webinar attendees asked a very good question - how does an agency get started and what tools should they use to form a social media strategy? 

Well, my belief is you should pick either Facebook or LinkedIn to begin your agency’s venture into social media.  Start by creating an agency Facebook page or personal LinkedIn page.  Make a few posts on the site regarding community events and your agency’s involvement in those events. As Kelly stated in our webinar, you want your customers and prospects to see that you are community oriented.

Another question centered on who should be the person to update the social media site.  You need to select someone that does not mind having their name associated with the social media site.  Make sure this person can communicate effectively and is committed to posting something once a week.  Remember if you have people in your office that do not want their name on social media, just omit putting any personal information about that individual. Also, it only takes a few minutes to make a simple post to the site.  Do not be too concerned with the amount of time you will spend updating your social media site.

As you progress with your venture into social media, remember your association is here to help you. We have the ability to train you on setting up each platform and recommendations on usage of each platform.  If you have more questions, please post them here or contact me at grobertson@iianc.com.

Interested in viewing a recorded version of the webinar “Engaging Customers with Social Media”? Click here to view. 

When I got into the agency business in 1981, there was no mandatory CE requirement in North Carolina. Yet I still took CE classes - imagine that! I probably even took enough courses to give me at least 12 hours per year. There weren’t as many designations available then (CIC, CPCU and maybe a few others), but there were classes offered on coverage topics that I was interested in taking to stay informed on changes in the industry. I remember many trips to the old IIANC building on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh to hear John Young, John Henderson and other great instructors teaching great courses. 

When mandatory CE was introduced, I believe it did have one very positive effect:  it probably weeded out a lot of “agents” who likely shouldn’t have been agents in the first place and who were not interested in continuing to sell insurance if it meant they actually had to learn something about it. But, does anyone out there feel that there is a downside to mandatory CE? Has it turned CE into a “commodity” whereby an agent who completes his/her 24 hours of credits thinks “That’s it, now I’m done” and may not take a class that would benefit them simply because they “don’t need the hours”? 

Do we take CE because we NEED to or because we WANT to? I would love to hear your thoughts.

First, apparently some insurance companies do not understand that when they write essential property insurance in Coastal North Carolina excluding wind, they are responsible to adjust the wind claim on behalf of the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (Beach Plan). This responsibility is clearly set out in North Carolina General Statute 58-45-35 (e). The Beach Plan will reimburse the essential property insurer for the claims expenses.

Second, the Single Adjuster Program (SAP) is a voluntary program. Each individual property insurer must decide whether they will participate in the SAP program. 

Because some confusion on these issues have been reported to IIANC, it seems that going forward agents should poll their insurers to find out the following two items:

• Does the essential property insurer who has excluded wind understand their  statutory responsibility to adjust the wind claims in the event of a catastrophic loss?
  
• Does the property insurer participate in the Single Adjuster Program?

Knowing the answer to these two questions should clarify how and to whom to file wind and flood claims in the event of a catastrophic loss.

So how do we provide our customers with the functionality they want from our websites?  First, we must understand our customers’ needs. Most want the ability to check on their billing information, account information, request an endorsement, request a certificate, or get a quote. 

As our agency management systems have evolved, they now allow us the capability of giving this access to our clients over the Internet. This is done by providing a link to the management system from our website and giving the client a unique username and password. Clients enjoy having the ability to review their policy information over the Internet or from their mobile device whenever they want; thus allowing 24/7 access for your customers. 

Personal lines customers might be shopping for a new vehicle over the weekend and need to request an endorsement to add this vehicle. Also, they might want to rate this online to see the cost associated with adding the vehicle. One of the most requested services is billing information. Many personal lines clients want to quickly verify payment or check what is due to the company. Just imagine the efficiency gained in your office if your clients were able to gather this information online.

Your commercial lines clients are always looking for the ability to access certificates. Many truck drivers and construction workers are often needing certificates after our regular 9 to 5 working hours. Providing a way for them to get the certificate when they need it enhances the ability to retain these customers and provide better service.   

Recently, I was speaking with an agency that lost a client because they did not have this feature on their website. However, there was another insurance agency that provided this capability so the client moved their coverage to the new agent. As you can see, informing potential clients of your ability to service certificates 24/7 can be a great selling tool.

Websites should give your clients easy access to the information they need. Providing a dynamic website that offers your customers access to their account information, certificates, billing and quoting helps your retention and the ability to acquire new business.  

Does your agency have a dynamic website? Has adding these interactive features improved your customer retention or helped with prospects? Do you have other ideas for improving independent agent websites?

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George is IIANC’s Technology Consultant. With over 25 years of experience in the insurance and technology industry, he is available to help your agency with questions about agency management systems, technology concerns, social media and much more including enhancing your website. Contact George at grobertson@iianc.com.

In this case, Emily refers to the current named storm potentially threatening the Atlantic Coast. Emily is the 5th named storm of the 2011 hurricane season; less than three months into hurricane season, and we are already on “E” !

Tropical storms and hurricanes generate fear of potential losses from wind, but what most of your insureds often do not plan for is the resulting flood.

How many of your clients truly know that their Homeowners’ insurance does not cover flooding? All you have to do is watch the news in the aftermath of the storms in Mississippi and the Midwest to see how devastating floods can be and how many homeowners were left wishing they had opted to purchase flood insurance. 

When the warnings are issued for Emily, it will be too late to ensure that you have discussed this risk with your clients.

Flooding and the threat of tropical storms should not just be a concern for those of you on the coast of North Carolina, but for all of us as flooding can happen anytime and anywhere.

Our Big I Markets Flood team is here to help you educate your clients about the potential dangers of flooding to their homes and businesses. Remember, as an IIANC member you can access coverage for excess over primary, non-participating communities and coastal barrier resource act properties for both commercial and personal lines clients through Big I Markets! You can always contact me directly at mcowan@iianc.com with questions.

So want can you do in your communities and for your clients to prepare them for potential flood damage?

Remind your clients to get READY:
      - Protect their possessions
      - Prepare their home
      - Develop a family emergency plan

A great resource for tips on preparing for a flood and also what to do during and after a storm is www.floodsmart.gov.

Many of our members use hurricane season as a time to reach out to their clients with educational materials.  What a great opportunity to “touch” your clients while educating them on an important topic.
       – Send a letter or postcard 
       - Post an update on your agency’s website, blog, Facebook page or onhold messages

By the way, IIANC’s new Automation & Technology Consultant George Roberston can help you implement this technology, and our Member Marketing Activity Center has a turn-key suite of marketing tools that you can easily customize if you need help.

Another idea is to reach out to your church and civic groups and connect with some prospective new clients as well your current ones.

Let us know what marketing methods have worked for you. Have you tried any of these ideas in your agency?

Please share your thoughts for how to get the word out about the threat of floods in your communities. Remember: flooding can occur anywhere and at any time!

Here’s to being prepared and hoping Emily, Franklin, Gert and all those to follow do not find their way to our state!

What is the matter with this new generation? Don’t they understand the importance of insurance for themselves and their families? Well, let’s stop and take a look at some of the driving forces behind their make up. The Millennial Generation began around 1978, and has been shaped by events, leaders, developments and trends of its time. Instant communication has exploded during their time span. With the rise of the Internet, we have seen email, texting, and Instant Messenger as new methods of communication; not to mention Facebook, Skype, Twitter and YouTube. A recent survey found that 97% of this generation has access to a computer, 94% own a cell phone and 56% own an MP3 player.

Purchasing methods have drastically changed during this time period. Older generations may have purchased music by going into a store and looking through displays of albums, but this generation has instant access by downloading their music online. Amazon, eBay and other internet sites allow the ability to shop at home or on your mobile device.

Instant communication has exploded with the rise of texting. I have found that my teenage daughter exponentially exceeded my yearly texting in just one month. Instant access is a way of life and one that this generation expects. 

So, how do we communicate with this generation to write more business? Communicating and doing business with this generation will most likely be done by mobile applications and website interfaces that allow them instant access to their policies and information. If you are like me, you have seen the major direct writers embrace this generation with mobile phone apps, enhanced websites and television ads with emphasis on instant and quick access. 

In order for independent agents to increase awareness with this generation and write more business, we need to take a serious look at our communication methods. Here are some ways to improve our communication with the Millennial Generation:

• Improve our websites for easy access to information.
• Integrate our management systems with our websites.
• Create mobile applications for quick access to data.
• Have the ability to chat with our clients online.
• Create and maintain social media sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.).

These are just a few things to help attain and retain more business from this younger generation, which will one day make up your client base. Over the next few weeks, I will share a series of posts going into further detail on how you can incorporate these things into your agency’s overall marketing efforts. But for now, I hope this got you thinking about the importance of changing the way independent agents have traditionally marketed ourselves to our customers in order to connect with the Millennial Generation.

Now it’s your turn – let me know your ideas and thoughts on this issue. Are you already using some of these new communication methods in your agency? If so, are they working or have you tried something else to reach your millennial customers? Is this change in the way we communicate good or bad? What do you think will happen if independent agents don’t adapt to the changing world of social media and instant access? 

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IIANC is excited to have George on board as our new Technology Consultant. With over 25 years of experience in the insurance and technology industry, he is available to help your agency with questions about agency management systems, technology concerns, social media and much more. Contact George at grobertson@iianc.com.

Online continuing education has exploded over the past 5-10 years. When I left my agency in 2004 to come to the Association, I was just beginning to see some providers offering online CE - usually very cheap online CE. Right before I began writing this post, I Googled the phrase “Online Insurance Continuing Education” and got 11,870,000 results (in no less than 0.19 seconds, thank you Google). I went to one of the top-listed websites and found out that I could get a package of 24 hours of insurance CE (a whole biennium’s worth) for just $39.95. I imagine they might also have told me that if I acted today, they would throw in a ShamWow! 

As tempting as it would be for the educator in me to toss this off as “you get what you pay for”, I’m enough of a realist to know that there are a lot of you out there who are getting your CE thorough online providers such as these for many different reasons. I’ve always believed that one of the down-sides of mandatory continuing education is that it has turned CE into a commodity. Now, just like peanut vendors at a baseball game, we have online CE providers barking out “Get your 24 hours of CE credit right here!!”…and folks are buying it.

As I mentioned earlier, IIANC has committed to the ABEN platform as our way of delivering online continuing education to our members. If you have participated in an ABEN webcast, you know that it is almost like being in the actual classroom. It combines streaming video and audio of the instructor along with a PowerPoint type presentation.  ABEN also provides the ability for the participant to ask questions of the instructor and to get answers in real time. We believe ABEN offers the richest online learning experience that this technology can provide. However, this technology comes at a cost and as a result, we can’t offer these courses at “bargain basement” prices. But, when you take an ABEN course, you are saving on gas, meals and time away from the office…all while learning from some of the best insurance instructors in the country. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to give ABEN a try today. Click here to view the list of ABEN courses currently approved for CE in North Carolina.

So, here are my questions to you. I hope this will generate some discussion among us.  

Do you take any of your CE through online providers?

Is the quality of the course content important to you or is it more important that it be a low cost per hour of CE?

What types of courses would you like to see available through ABEN?

For once, being in the middle of the pack may be a good thing. Sperling’s Best Places, who publishes city rankings on different criteria, has put out a map of the riskiest places to live and the least risky places to live. They have merged hazard maps from NOAA, The University of Miami and the U. S. Geological Survey dealing with the risks of tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes.  The following are the findings for the least risky and the most risky places to live:

So, North Carolina did not make the “Elite Eight” in either ranking. But, North Carolina did make the second tier of highest risk states along with Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and a few states on the northeastern seaboard. The inclusion of North Carolina in this grouping was based almost entirely on the hurricane exposure in coastal North Carolina. Ironically, a state with lower risk is California. Even with the earthquake exposure in Southern California, the ranking seems to be based on the lower frequency of earthquakes versus hurricanes and tornados. Still, it is a surprising conclusion.

The interesting hazard map on which these rankings are based is available here.

While we are often reminded of the perils associated with North Carolina, it could be a lot worse. All in all North Carolina is blessed with a moderate climate with, thankfully, only occasional visits from a cyclonic intruder.

The first is the question of ownership of the autos that you are being asked to insure on both personal and commercial auto policies. There is a federal court case where the owner of a business allowed the auto owned by a family member not active in the business to be insured on the Business Auto Policy. When the auto in question was involved in an accident, the insurer of the business auto policy sought to deny coverage since the auto was not owned by the business. The court upheld the insurer’s position in excess of the Financial Responsibility Act. So this raises the question if insurance agents should get some form of confirmation as to the way the auto is titled before the insurance is written.

A second issue that continually crops up is the problem of condos. Who owns what? And how much insurance should the unit owner buy? These are complex and difficult issues. It is difficult to determine who owns what unless an agent has a copy of the NC Condominium Act and copies of the bylaws and declarations of the individual condo association. Out of these documents one can begin to form an opinion as to what constitutes a unit. Additionally, the insurance provisions of the bylaws and declarations can often extend the insurance provided by the association to cover real property within the unit.

In some cases, the NC Condominium Act requires the condo association to be written on an “all-in” basis where the association must insure all real property regardless of the ownership. The second and more difficult problem is the amount of Coverage A insurance the unit owner should purchase to cover their own interest in the condo. This determination can be affected by the description of the unit, the operation of the NC Condominium Act, and the size of deductibles chosen by the association - just to name a few considerations. While we cannot adequately discuss this problem in just one blog post, it is important to say that it is better to have too much insurance rather than too little.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts or opinions on either of these issues. Have you experienced trouble with either of the situations described above?

Also, leave a comment and let me know if there are other technical issues you would like discussed in a future post.

Did you know by attending IIANC’s Joint Annual Convention with Young Agents July 14 – 17 in Concord, NC you could make this happen?

Everyone always talks about the networking and the business relationships created at Conventions. It is this face to face time that proves to be invaluable for attendees because of the exchange of ideas, tools and training tips that make us better employees. Face Time. It Matters. is a grassroots effort created for this specific reason after the meetings industry took a hit after 9/11.  As your association’s events planner, I most definitely agree with this!

The cities we go to absolutely love our conventions because of the money spent by our attendees. Every city has a different economic impact formula based on their visitors’ average expenses. In a smaller city, the average day tripper spends approximately $68 per day while they are in the city. An overnight guest spends about $160 in a 24-hour period. The city then takes those figures and uses a multiplier of 2.4 to show how many times funds spent in the area recalculates throughout the community. As some hospitality experts will say, this is a clean money effect! And as I would say, IIANC has a $144,000 economic impact during the Joint Annual Convention!

And you can do the same for your company! Research firm Oxford Economics found a clear link between business travel (attending Conventions) and business growth. For every dollar spent, as much as $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits is realized. Your registration fee alone could mean over $3,000 in revenue for you and your company. 

With numbers like that, how can you afford NOT to attend the Joint Annual Convention? So, please take a few minutes and browse through our Joint Annual Convention website to see all that awaits in Concord…great speakers, valuable seminars, networking opportunities, access to over 80 companies & vendors and so much more. 

Will you register today?