Managing general agents who specialize in sports and recreationprograms say the sector could be a source of new business forindependent agents, who often ignore it because they fail to seeits potential, or believe they won't be able to find a market.

“I would suggest agents should go where others aren't. There areplenty of prospects that aren't high-profile,” said Lou Valentic,chief marketing officer for K&K Insurance Group Inc., amanaging general underwriter in Ft. Wayne, Ind.

While agents may desire some kind of professional sport team orlarge amateur sports association for their book, the fact is theycan look in their own backyards “for local associations, sportsevents, high school or college business,” Mr. Valentic noted.

Don Kasper, who recently retired as director of marketing forTucson, Ariz.-based R.B. Jones, an MGA affiliated with Burns &Wilcox, said retail agents should look to cultivate associationrelationships.

Successful agents will work through such sporting associationsto cultivate sponsorship affinity programs–a good tactic fordeveloping business in this niche market instead of relying onone-on-one insurance programs, said Mr. Kasper.

Michael Dean, owner of Francis L. Dean & Associates–an MGAin Wheaton, Ill., specializing in sports and recreation–said onestrategy for generating prospects and markets in the sports andrecreation sector overlooked by many retail agents is theInternet.

He said Web technology can help agents find more unique productsand locate markets to place unique sports-related risks that mightcome their way.

“We made the investments and spent a significant amount of timeupgrading our system so agents can find markets on the Internet andlink it to other sites,” said Mr. Dean. “We created a site specificto retail agents rather than directmarketing”–www.fdeanagents.com.

He said the Internet will help reduce expenses and increase aretail agent's capabilities, while also removing geographicboundaries that may have inhibited some agents from finding marketsin the past.

One piece of advice Mr. Dean offers retail agents is that theynever tell a client they don't handle risks from the sports andrecreation sector. “There are a lot of outlets that they can turnto, especially in today's soft market,” he noted.