American Agent & Broker seems to have inadvertently stirred up a hornets' nest with our January story on sales training programs (“Train your producer,” Jan. 2011 AA&B).

First, a clarification: in focusing on the two schools in the article (The National Alliance and The Hartford School of Insurance), in no way did I mean to slight the AICPCU or otherwise infer that the CPCU designation was not a worthy goal for any insurance professional to achieve.

But while failing to point out the value of the CPCU designation may have had the negative effect of making me look foolish, it also ignited an interesting discussion of just how qualified a bare-bones-licensed insurance producer should be.

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