F R I D A Y ,   A P R I L   2 2 ,   2 0 0 5

States Complementing National Ads |  RV Insurance Available on Big "I" Markets |  Big "I" Gives to UNICEF |  ACT Publishes New Agency Guide for Disaster Management |  The First Step Can Be the Hardest |  Significant Broker Insights Findings |  Industry News

  T R U S T E D   C H O I C E ^®
States Complementing National Ads

As Trusted Choice^® Month prepares to launch, several Big "I" state associations are getting in on the action, giving many Trusted Choice® agencies double and sometimes triple exposure with consumers.

Trusted Choice® Month features a national ad flight beginning May 9 and running through May 22, a national public relations campaign to heighten consumer awareness of the brand, as well as local-agency marketing activities. The brand program is calling on participating agencies to conduct their own local advertising campaigns to raise awareness of their Trusted Choice® affiliation.

The list of state associations that are conducting their own advertising in conjunction with the national ad flight is long and includes some of the largest and smallest states in the country.

While small in size, Rhode Island is doing big things with Trusted Choice^®. The state association and its participating agencies have invested in a nearly three-month, statewide advertising campaign. The activity includes thousands of agency-tagged TV ads and hundreds of billboard ads around the state.

Meanwhile, down in the heart of Texas, the state association has set up an innovative advertising co-op program to encourage Trusted Choice® member agencies to run ads locally. Agents are eligible for a sliding-scale reimbursement for their Trusted Choice® advertising with the highest reimbursement reserved for agencies that use the tag-able ad materials developed by the brand program.

In the heartland, Trusted Choice® Month will mark the launch of an extensive radio advertising program in Kansas. The state has purchased nearly 14,000 radio ads that will air through December. Can you imagine the power of such a concentrated promotional campaign?

In the upper Midwest, the South Dakota association is working to increase consumer awareness of local Trusted Choice® agencies. The state is running ads on local evening news broadcasts to reach consumers with the message that Trusted Choice® agencies offer choice, customization and advocacy.

Other state associations conducting state-level promotional campaigns in May include New York, New Jersey, Missouri, New Hampshire, Indiana and Oklahoma.

It’s not too late for your agency to participate in Trusted Choice® Month. Make plans now to run the tag-able ads in your local media—TV, radio or newspapers. It will be one of the smartest investments you’ll make in your business this year. For more information about Trusted Choice® Month or state association advertising activities, contact Jeff Myers at 800-221-7917; jeff.myers@iiaba.net.  T O P

B I G   " I "   M A R K E T S
RV Insurance Available on Big "I" Markets

Summer and vacation season will be upon us in a few weeks. But for lovers of recreational vehicles, now is the time to buy and trade for the model they want to use this year. That means it’s also the time for agents to check out the recreational vehicle product offered by National Interstate on Big "I" Markets. Big "I" Markets agent Keely Troutman from the J.E. Fisher agency in Granite Quarry, N.C. recently did just that. She fielded a call from an RV dealer who wanted to verify auto coverage for a person who just bought an RV. The client had received a quote for RV insurance from the dealer but Troutman quickly countered by asking her client if she could provide a quote. The first quote she got was higher than the dealership but the principal in her agency, John Fisher, remembered that Big "I" Markets had a recreational vehicle product. Troutman quoted it and got back a very competitive price. "I thought the process on Big ‘I’ Markets was great," Troutman says. "It was quick and very easy to use." To learn more about the RV product, log in here. Not yet registered for Big "I" Markets? Download a registration kit from www.bigimarkets.com.  T O P

B I G   " I "   N E W S
Big "I" Gives to UNICEF

The Big "I" recently donated the 20,000 "Starpoints" earned by holding the Big "I" Programs Conference at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City to UNICEF. Starpoints can be redeemed for free nights at any one of over 750 Starwood hotels around the globe. One room may be booked for as little as 3,000 points a night. Starpoints can be converted to airline miles with most major carriers and used toward free flights. This donation will help UNICEF reduce its travel costs and help ensure that as much of its resources as possible are directed to support programs that help children in need who live in developing countries.  T O P

A G E N T S   C O U N C I L   F O R   T E C H N O L O G Y
ACT Publishes New Agency Guide for Disaster Management

The unusual 2004 hurricane season provided the catalyst for the Agents Council for Technology (ACT) to assemble a work group of affected independent agents and other industry participants to improve the disaster planning process. The product of these discussions is ACT’s newest report, "Key Considerations in Disaster Planning & Management for Independent Agencies & Brokerage Firms."

"This report draws on the experiences of independent agents and brokers living through disasters of all sorts, whether they be natural or man-made," says Ed Higgins, principal at Thousand Islands Agency in Clayton, N.Y., as well as the chairman of the ACT Disaster Planning Work Group. "Our discussions drove home the point that disaster planning and management is an imperative for every independent agency and that the plans developed will help assure the agency’s ability to continue to serve its customers following the disaster, whether the disaster is a fire, an ice storm, a virus attack on the agency’s systems or the result of the release of hazardous material in the area surrounding the agency."

"The key is for independent agents and brokers to plan for these events well in advance and then to practice for given contingencies regularly," says Jeff Yates, ACT executive director. "The ACT guide provides a detailed checklist for agents to use to perform this analysis and is divided into three major sections: Steps to Take Well Before a Disaster, Steps to Take When a Disaster is Imminent and Steps to Take After a Disaster Strikes."

The ACT guide focuses heavily on advance planning and preparation, protecting agency data and systems, planning for alternative communications, making sure all employees know their specific roles to perform should a disaster strike and being sensitive to the emotional toll a disaster can have on employees and customers. The guide also includes references to additional resources for agencies to consider as they build their disaster plans.

To download Key Considerations in Disaster Planning and Management for Independent Agencies & Brokerage Firms, please click here. For more information, contact Jeff Yates at 800-221-7917; jeff.yates@iiaba.net.  T O P

B E S T   P R A C T I C E S
The First Step Can Be the Hardest

A crash agency management program that tries to make up for a multitude of past mistakes has the potential to do as much or more damage than doing nothing. Your agency did not create its current situation overnight, so don’t try and correct everything overnight. Remember: do not try and implement everything at once. Take the time to do a complete review of your current situation, and compare it to the Best Practices findings. Your review may reveal your agency is already equal to or exceeding the benchmarks of the best agencies in some areas, while falling well short in others.

A comprehensive review is the necessary first step. Beyond the review, no one practice is necessarily a prerequisite to the others. Based on the results from your initial review, determine which practices hold the greatest potential to significantly improving your agency’s performance. Then, utilize the proper tool or tools developed for that specific practice to get the improvement process started for your operation. Once you have improvement well underway in one area, you can move on to your next priority, then the next. After a period of time pursuing steady progress, you will eventually find all of the top practices are taking hold in your agency and you can then focus less on radical change and more on ongoing, continuous improvement.

To help with your initial review, utilize the Best Practices Agency Self-Diagnostic Tool. The tool will help you evaluate your agency’s key external influences (the current business climate in your area), management issues, key operations and performance issues. These evaluations, when compared with statistical benchmarks included in the latest annual update to the Best Practices Study, will allow you to clearly see the performance gaps between where your agency currently operates and where it could be if utilizing the best practices of the best agencies.

To learn more about the Agency Self-Diagnostic Tool, for a quick agency self-check form or to run an overall quick-check spreadsheet on how your basic agency numbers compare to those of the Best Practices agencies, click here. For more information about the Best Practices program, contact Madelyn Flannagan at 800-221-7917; madelyn.flannagan@iiaba.net.  T O P

V I R T U A L   U N I V E R S I T Y
Significant Broker Insights Findings

The soft market continues to impact the results of publicly traded insurance brokers. Organic revenue growth rates (revenue growth excluding the effect of acquisitions and currency fluctuations) continued to trend downward in the fourth quarter of 2004, reveals "Broker Insights," published by WFG Capital Advisors LP, a leading investment banking firm to the insurance industry and Big "I" Virtual University Expert.

Insurance agencies and brokerages’ owners and principals may wonder if the soft market, along with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigations, has caused acquisition activity to die down. Based on announcements by many of the publicly traded insurance brokers, it appears to be business as usual as they remain on the lookout for high-performing firms to acquire.

"Broker Insights" contains additional statistical information such as average price/revenue multiples paid for acquisitions by these firms. Owners and principals of insurance agencies and brokerages can use the organic revenue growth rates of the publicly held firms as a proxy for how the industry is doing and to compare how their firms are performing in relation. Insurance brokers, both large and small, face significant headwinds going into 2005, and no one is immune to the effects of the softening marketplace. Statistics on rate changes by various lines of business (i.e. commercial property, general liability, umbrella, etc.) are also included in "Broker Insights." To get a copy of the latest "Broker Insights," click here or call 717-780-7800. For more informationn about the Big "I" Virtual University, click here.   T O P