While agents and brokers are trying to hit the ground running this year, many may feel like they are stuck on a treadmill, struggling to keep up their books of business while more clients contract or fall by the wayside in this challenging economy, past National Underwriter Commercial Insurance Agency of the Year award winners warn.

Last fall, during NU's "State of the Agent Roundtable," Gary Ivey, president of West Point, Ga.-based J. Smith Lanier & Company, noted how the recession was taking a toll on his earnings.

Indeed, Mr. Ivey said that Lanier--NU's 2008 "Champion"--had seen payroll cutbacks undermine the firm's workers' compensation book and reduce commissions, while bankruptcies, consolidations and takeovers eroded his overall client base.

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