Our biennial Producer Survey, done in partnership withFlaspöhler Research Group, is a revealing picture of independentagents' opinions of U.S. commercial carriers. The survey of 407independent producers consisted of 35 questions about insurerutilization, performance, perceptions of insurers and relatedtopics. A total of 74 insurers and 19 lines of business wereevaluated. 

To achieve the highest level of accuracy obtainable in marketresearch, adaptive interviewing methodologies were used in fieldingthis survey. Adaptive interviewing recognizes that eachrespondent's experience is different, and so too should be each setof questions. Rather than put every question to every producer,only questions about issues known to be important to each producerwere asked. Also, each producer was asked to evaluate only carrierswith which he/she was familiar.

Importantly, adaptive interviewing removes much of the biastoward larger carriers common in most surveys and levels theplaying field for smaller insurers.