Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), when I see an exposure, I wonder how insurance covers it. Exposures, whether rideshare, renting your car or house, or an unmanned aircraft, keep developing. I recently heard that if you have a nice backyard with a nice pool, you can...
A few weeks ago (August 1), the subject of the weekly blog involved the preparation and planning that goes into acquiring a new firm. Whether the new firm has 10 staff or 100, it is a lot of work. One issue (when acquiring an agency)...
There is no doubt that the Excess and Surplus Lines marketplace is a friend to virtually every insurance agency. Without effective use of the E&S market, most agencies (if not all) would admit they would not have been able to achieve the success in the...
Without question, the E&O Plus firms active in auditing are seeing tremendous benefits. A solid auditing program provides insight and detail on the extent to which the agency staff are meeting the agency's expectations on the established procedures. The E&O Plus audit questions are heavily...
As agencies continue to look for efficiency gains, one area where compliance is critical involves the correct use of the various system naming conventions. This issue sometimes does not receive the attention it deserves. Documentation has been one of the most important loss prevention initiatives since...
In my 35+ years of involvement with Agents E&O, there is one area that continues to frustrate me somewhat (actually, it frustrates me a lot). As many of the great agency staff I have interacted with know, I have always felt producer staff (including those...
I remember, many years ago, when I would visit agencies, they would be noisy. Phones would be ringing, and people would use the phone to communicate with clients. Now, and even before the pandemic, agencies have become much quieter. What was the difference? People don't...
It appears that each year, insurance carriers are paying out increasing dollars on dog-related injury claims. In fact, according to the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and State Farm, U.S. insurers paid out more than $1 billion in dog-related injury claims in 2022. A July 12 Insurance Journal article (below) discussed a...
There is a lot of truth to this statement. Acquiring an agency requires a lot of work, and attention to detail is critical. Preparation and planning are extremely important to ensure a successful outcome. One issue I have encountered with a number of the E&O...
Virtually every agency I am honored to work with is experiencing growth, with most of that growth achieved organically instead of through acquisition. This growth is often accomplished through an aggressive cross-selling initiative within a business segment (PL, CL, EB, etc.) or from one segment...