American Agent & Broker March 2009
Cover Story
The 800-pound gorilla: Coastal Property Dominates East Coast Insurance Scene
WHEN IT COMES TO selling real estate, the mantra is "location, location, location." The same could be said for selling property insurance on the East Coast, where the main determinant of pricing and availability also hinges on location:
Features
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Staying afloat: Tips for anchoring yacht coverage in a down market
Headlines across the country are making it clear that consumers are watching their wallets closely, cutting back on discretionary spending and looking for ways to reduce ongoing expenses. The ripple effect is being felt already by agents and brokers
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Managing Your Agency's Financial Information
Your agency has access to an impressive array of financial reports and ratios that can be produced by your agency management system and related spreadsheet analysis. You also can incorporate financial standards, benchmarks and other measures to track
Columns
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Down to Cases: Policy inception negligence lawsuits not so simple
Insurance agents and brokers often sign insurance applications without obtaining the signature of the person seeking the insurance first. The insurer relies upon the application when deciding whether or not to insure
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Strictly Sales: Time: Your most finite resource
From media to automobiles to insurance, time is a sales professional's most critical resource. Time is your "inventory." Once you use the time, it is gone and there is no time left for selling. How
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Agency Technology: Boost the power behind your mobile gadgets
Batteries--they're everywhere. These small, portable devices are the source of strength and success behind many pieces of technology we take for granted. But do batteries receive the attention they
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Editorial: Penny wise, pound foolish
At this writing, the U.S. economy is wondering whether the Obama administration's newly signed stimulus package will really jumpstart the economy. Although there are no guarantees, at this point it seems that
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Policy Issues: "Ethical" behavior translates to trust
Welcome to March, where we again join the CPCU Society and many other insurance organizations in celebrating National Ethics Month. Several months ago, I received an e-mail, from alert reader Rick Mayhew, that I
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For the Manager: Hard market not the solution
The last few years have been a bloodbath for agents, especially commercial agents. Prices have not been this soft since World War II. While the rest of the economy is just beginning to fear the possibility of
Departments
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Legislative Roundup: Regulatory reform
President Barack Obama has stated he intends to present a proposal to Congress for a major overhaul of the regulatory apparatus governing financial services by April. The president has not taken a public position on
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Avoiding E&O: Stay within your strengths
In most professions, the generalist, the so-called "jack of all trades," has become an endangered species. TV's kindly general practitioner Dr. Marcus Welby could treat everything from a hangnail to
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Getting Personal: What's your flood zone?
A customer may not know what flood zone in which he or she lives, but agents have that kind of information at their fingertips; it's easily accessible from The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP),
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Letters
"Planting season" on pointI continue to look forward to receiving my copy of American Agent & Broker and especially to reading Chris Amrhein's articles. Amrhein's column ("It's not too early for planting
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Industry IQ: No hard market yet: Another 9 percent decline
Property-casualty insurance rates for January declined 9 percent, the same level seen in the prior two months, according to MarketScout. By coverage class, MarketScout reported declines: Business owners--10 percent Commercial property
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Industry IQ: Survey: 9 out of 10 companies put cost-cutting in place
Chicago-based job placement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. report that 9 out of 10 companies have put cost-cutting strategies in place, including hiring freezes and furloughs, in order to ride out the recession.Meanwhile, companies say
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Industry IQ: Pilot's successful water landing may deter lawsuits
US Airways Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, may have protected the airline from lawsuits that usually follow plane crashes.Legal experts say that because of its happy outcome, Flight 1549 has the
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Industry IQ: Harford seeks to limit coverage for tainted peanuts
Hartford Casualty Insurance Co. filed a lawsuit against the Peanut Corp of America to determine whether it must pay claims for victims affected by a nationwide salmonella outbreak.The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District
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Industry IQ: 2008 Insurance Fraud Hall Of Shame
No criminal masterminds here: the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud's annual Hall of Shame spotlights 2008's largest and sometimes dumbest insurance fraud schemes. What did they have in common? They all got caught. Appellate Judge
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Industry IQ: Survey: Bad managers why employees leave
Bad managers get the blame for most employee defections, according to a Robert Half International survey. The staffing firm polled senior executives about reasons for losing top-performing employees, and 35 percent cited unhappiness with management
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Agency Success: A place to grow
Town & Country Insurance's Scott Oswald, farm and crop insurance department manager (far right), poses with an agency turkey farmer: The John and Andria Volkmann family of rural Jewell, Iowa.
