As you can tell from this month's cover, 2009 is no ordinary year for AA&B. This issue features a celebratory look on our 80 years of covering independent agents and brokers.

In our perusal of back issues of what started in October 1929 as The Local Agent, we've become personally involved with the history of the independent agency system. Based on our research, we've uncovered two facts: 1) things have changed, and 2) things haven't changed at all.

Obviously, there are plenty of differences between then and now (visit agentandbroker.com for more anniversary coverage). Among the most obvious are the impressive strides we've made in technology–from a world run by telephones and typewriters to today's wired world (more on that on p. 48 of this issue and on agentandbroker.com). Today's agencies are bigger and more sophisticated, serving a diverse and complex client base. Insurance products and services have evolved over the years to meet those needs. But much of what we covered in our past is surprisingly similar to what we're writing about today. Our earliest readers, struggling through the Great Depression, wanted articles on improving collections, combating bad economic conditions and getting the biggest bang for their advertising bucks at a time when “advertising” mostly meant blotters and billboards. Sound familiar? Through the years, other evergreen subjects evolved: cross-selling unique coverages (did you know there was once something called silverware insurance), the need for agents to act as consultants to their customers, concerns about government intervention in the industry and competing for market share against direct writers, to name a few. This isn't to say that we ignored current events. The covers and content reflected each era–the 1933 National Recovery Act seal on our masthead, war maps on the covers of World War II-era issues, and psychedelic ads from the 1960s. I confess to finding guilty pleasure in the ads, some of which feature caricatured Native Americans, Pullman train porters, dizzy dames and a French poodle named Homer. One thing hasn't changed: our mission statement. In the very first issue of The Local Agent, editor and publisher Donald H. Clark wrote, “The Local Agent believes in the American agency system… (and) hopes to play its part in the development of the local agency business during the coming years. It will be the constant aim of the editors to publish pertinent articles on the varied lines of insurance, and suggestions regarding the best methods of presenting those lines to the insurance buying public.”

I couldn't have said it any better than Don did pounding it out on his Underwood typewriter.

Long live American Agent & Broker–and the independent agent!

Special Reports /

Editorial: The more things change...

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