What are the biggest challenges facing producers today? How are they coping with the impact of the lingering recession and the soft commercial insurance market in most areas?
These are just some of the questions this year's winners and finalists confront in the annual "State of the Independent Agent Roundtable," put together by National Underwriter and American Agent & Broker.
The responses will appear in the Nov. 1 edition of NU, as well as the December issue of AA&B, as part of the "Commercial Agency Awards For Excellence" program.
Those profiled in this edition will offer their views about the threats and opportunities producers are coping with today, including representatives from the two winning agencies (IMA Financial Group and Eagan Insurance Agency), as well as three of the other finalists (AH&T Insurance, Hugh Cotton Insurance and Lapre Scali & Company.)
Among the questions posed to those agencies spotlighted in the award program:
o How is your agency adapting to maintain your top- and bottom lines in this recession?
o How do you avoid becoming a commodity-driven price-shopper in this soft, competitive commercial lines market?
o How do you maintain your value-added service offerings with such pressure to contain operating costs?
o What are some of the major technology challenges your agency has faced, and what have you done to overcome them over the past couple of years?
o How is your agency responding to the rise in online marketing and social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.?
o Getting new blood into this industry has always been a challenge. How does your agency recruit and train the next generation of insurance agents and CSRs?
o How do you go about cross-selling group benefits and other non-p&c products? How might the new health care reform law impact this business for your agency?
o What might carriers in general do to improve their partnerships with agents? What can agents do on their end?
o How do you see the independent agency system evolving over the next several years? What will be your biggest opportunities? How about the biggest challenges?
o What kind of market to you expect in 2011? Will renewals still be soft for Jan. 1?
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