Independent agents gave The Travelerstop honors as the best overall commercial carrier in a 2010biennial study of agents' opinions of U.S. commercial carriers. TheFlaspohler Research Group conducted the survey of 250 agents inpartnership with National Underwriter.

Related:Read the article “Easy does it” by Robert RegisHyle.

Top vote-getters for “best overall”carriers also included (in alphabetical order) Chubb, Cincinnati,CNA, Fireman's Fund, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, Philadelphia,Progressive, Safeco and Zurich. Travelers, Progressive, TheHartford and Zurich also were chosen as having the most usefulwebsites; however, one-fifth of the respondents said no carrierwebsite was useful to them.

Significantly, more than half of theproducers said they would make changes to their current carriers inthe next 12 months, including adding or deleting carriers. Nearlyhalf said they were “somewhat satisfied” with their commercialcarriers and 42.6 percent described themselves as “very satisfied”with their carriers.

Related: Dave Lenckus' ”Relationship status? It'scomplicated”.

Agents were asked to list reasons, if any, they wouldask their client to pay a higher premium to use a specific carrier.The majority (61.7 percent) said they would do so for superiorservice.

On a scale of 1 to 9, participantsrated carriers with which they were familiar in 10 areas:underwriting process, responsive service, claims handling,partnership, products and coverages, financial security, technologysupport, brand-reputation, risk management and loss control programand compensation program.

Underwriting and responsive service were the mostimportant factors when choosing a commercial carrier, with acarrier's compensation program rating the least important. Insurersreceiving the highest rankings based on the 10 evaluation criteria(in alphabetical order) were: Chubb, Cincinnati, CNA, GreatAmerican, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, Progressive, Safeco,Travelers and Zurich.

Related: Read the article “Bridging theproducer-carrier partnership gap” by Sam Friedman.

When rated solely by individual criteria, agents choseTexas Mutual as the top-rated carrier for underwriting, service andclaims handling.

Only 8 percent of respondents said their relationshipswith their carriers were declining. Independents agents in nearlyequal portions said their relationships with carriers were eitherimproving or not really changing.

Respondents defined their primary responsibility forchoosing commercial carriers in 14 business lines, with the topfive general liability (93.8 percent), commercial auto (88.1percent), property (87.1 percent), workers comp (80.5 percent),umbrella liability (73.3%) and E&O (66.2 percent).

Agents chose the print version of National Underwriteras the publication that provides them the best information to dotheir jobs, followed by American Agent & Broker,Rough Notes and the National Underwriter onlineversion.