Insurance Illustrated | July 12, 2024,July 12, 2024

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Education + Analysis for the Independent Agent

Categories Included In This Week's Edition

Advantages of Big 'I' Membership * Agency Management * Back to Basics * Personal Lines * Commercial Lines * Insurance Laws & Statutes/Coverage Resources

Special Feature

Attention Big I Members – Share Your Voice and Participate in J.D. Power Carrier Satisfaction Survey

The Big "I" and J.D. Power have teamed for the 2024 Carrier Satisfaction survey and invite Big “I” members to participate. We want to capture experience with the insurers you work with and level of satisfaction in a number of areas. Those who qualify and complete the survey will receive a $40 token of appreciation and a complimentary summary report of the study. Please be assured that your responses will only be used for research purposes and no one will try to contact you as a result of completing this survey. The survey link and additional details can be accessed by visiting the Big I Virtual University and logging in with your member credentials (email address and password).

Advantages of Big 'I' Membership

Big "I" Alliance Blue

Big “I" Alliance Blue provides a competitive market access solution for Big “I" member agencies. Members may access personal and commercial lines markets including auto and home, bonds, cyber, small commercial and more. There are no fees and no volume commitments, and you own your expirations. Additionally, Big “I" Alliance Blue placement center staff can assist with quoting, issuing and binding accounts for agents.

Agency Management

Agency Contract Review

Warning: This article is NOT about "agency contracts," but rather about the practice (or lack thereof) of the agency reviewing the coverage implications of contracts entered into by insureds. We're categorizing this as an agency management, rather than a coverage, issue since procedures need to be in place for carrying out this often requested task.

I'm Shopping for a New Insurance Agent

Agents owe their clients a certain level of service, but what is that level? What should be the agent’s role? What standards of care are reasonable to properly assure an insurance client that he is properly protected? Agents are responsible for the safety of their clients' assets. While it may not be their very lives that are imperiled, if the agent doesn’t do his job, their client’s future and financial security could be ruined.

Apples-to-Apples Agents – Please Don’t Be One

First, you should never “quote” a policy; and second, you should never propose coverage that only matches what the insured had previously. If all you provide is an “apples-to-apples” proposal, you are not providing ANY service to your prospect; in fact, you are doing them a disservice.

Back to Basics

What Is the Surplus Lines Market?

With today's hard market, more agents place business with the surplus lines market. This article provides a basic overview of the importance of the surplus lines market, and some pitfalls to avoid when working in the surplus lines environment.

Personal Lines

Understanding the Unique Facets of Flood Insurance

Flood insurance is unusual. A flood policy essentially covers one peril but it is surrounded by many unusual facts and facets that make flood coverage unlike any other. Agents must understand the uniqueness of flood to more effectively present it to clients. With the threats of "atmospheric rivers" growing in California and other western states, reminding your insurance of the importance of flood insurance is only growing.

Insurance Applications: Ambiguities and Lies

An insured’s offer to purchase insurance is made in the form of the application, supposedly completed by the insured. Acceptance flows from the insurance carrier in the form of a policy. Logically, then, the insurance negotiation begins with the application.

Price Check

At a rapidly accelerating rate via TV advertising, online “ease of use” promotion and proliferating media articles, consumers are being duped into believing that personal lines insurance is a commodity, with the only significant difference being price. Nothing could be further from the truth. While a lower price doesn’t necessarily imply lesser coverage, that is often the case.

Commercial Lines

Employee Theft of Customers' Property

Employee theft coverage can easily be written under standard ISO crime forms or an employee fidelity bond. However, crime policies cover only theft of the insured's property by employees. Another exposure many businesses have is the theft of customers' property, on and off the insured's premises, by the insured's employees. How can this exposure be covered, if at all?

Email Phishing Scam: Coverage for Social Engineering

With perhaps the exception of ransomware, the largest source of cyber loss for insurance carriers is phishing scams, commonly known as business-email-compromises (BECs), whereby an insured is tricked into sending money by wire transfer to a bank account controlled by a criminal organization. Some losses are seven-figures; some represent death by a thousand wounds. During the last two years, many courts have found for the existence of Computer Fraud coverage for such loss in somewhat complex and sometimes head scratching decisions.

Don’t Use That Kind of Language Around Me: Insurance Cuss Words

Recently I’ve noticed insurance practitioners doing a LOT of cussing. No, I don’t mean using the traditional words that got us in trouble as kids; I am referring to insurance cussing. Yes, there are certain words and phrases used by many insurance practitioners that should not be used in polite company, mainly because they are just plain inappropriate and DIRTY.

Insurance Laws & Statutes / Coverage Resources

Conditional Renewal Notification Requirements

You can download this convenient Conditional Renewal Notifications Requirements by State chart for easy reference.

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