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T H U R S D A Y , M A Y 2 4 , 2 0 0 7 Industry News InVEST Silent, Live Auctions Raise $43,000 Attendees of the Big “I” Legislative Conference & Convention held in Washington, D.C., in April came out in force to support the 2007 InVEST Silent Auction. Items were donated by insurance carriers, independent agents and brokers, the Big “I” and its state affiliates and other professional organizations committed to preparing America’s young people for the future. The auction raised $31,000 to support the program’s annual scholarships awarded to graduates of InVEST who are pursuing higher education with an emphasis on insurance. Scholarships will be awarded to 2007 program graduates later this month.
This was the first year InVEST held a live auction as part of the Big “I” Legislative Conference & Convention. The donated item included tickets, airfare and hotel accommodations to the College Football Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Title Game in New Orleans, being held January 2008. The live auction raised $12,000, which added to the silent auction raised a grand total of $43,000 towards InVEST scholarships. InVEST would like to thank all of the contributors, bidders and volunteers that made this event such a great success.
A 501(c)3 educational trust, InVEST introduces high school and community college students to insurance and the more than 350 diverse careers available within the industry giving students a new outlook on the future. The program also offers insurance agencies, brokers and carriers a diverse and talented group of entry-level recruits. Play an important roll in the future of InVEST’s brightest students by supporting this one-of-a-kind insurance education program. For more information, contact Sandra Skipper at 703-706-5437; sandra.skipper@iiaba.net or visit www.independentagent.com and click on InVEST.
BEST PRACTICES Help Secure Your Agency’s Future Best Practices products offer a broad range of tools designed to meet an agency’s performance evaluation, research and management needs, including tools such as the “Agency Self-Diagnostic Tool,” “Guide to Producer Contracts,” “Customer Service Made Simple” and more. The Best Practices library continues to grow with the release of the “2006 Best Practices Study Update.” This valuable tool details the inner workings of today’s most successful agencies and provides benchmarks to measure an agency’s performance against other agencies’ and is best used in conjunction with the “2004 Best Practices Study.”
Best Practices products effectively help agencies build success by understanding the past, analyzing the present and formulating a strategy for the future. Some of the key findings of the 2006 update include:
• Personal lines continue to be an important revenue source by all revenue categories except the very largest agencies. Only 23.5% of those agencies in the more than $25 million category, versus 40% in 2004, indicated that PL would be an important revenue source for them in the future. On the other hand, the interest in individual life & health as an important source of future agency revenues dropped significantly in all categories except the $10 to $25 million group where 27.6% versus 21.9% in 2004 said it will be an important source.
• Acquisition activity has slowed slightly, but the slowdown may be due to fewer agencies desiring to sell than fewer agencies desiring to acquire. The largest agencies are still active with 58% of them reporting an acquisition during their last fiscal year, but they are the ones with enough resources to win the bidding wars for available agencies.
• Net revenue growth rates dropped from double digit rates to single digit rates. The average growth rate was 7.25% for agencies with revenues under $5 million and 8.5% for agencies with revenues over $5 million.
• Best Practices agencies remain very profitable. This is consistent with slight gains in productivity. Despite declining net revenue growth rates, revenue per employee, one of the most important productivity measures, increased in all but two study groups where it remained at past levels.
• Best Practices agencies continue to hire new producers, especially agencies in the larger three revenue category study groups where more than 60% of the agencies reported they had hired new producers. Interestingly, there was a significant increase in the numbers that were hired from other industries versus the insurance industry.
The Best Practices program provides a comprehensive series of tools on an extensive range of topics. Learn what the best agencies are doing and improve agency performance and increase agency value. For more information on the Best Practices program or to download an order form, click here.
VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY Learn How to Research Effectively Online It is estimated that 70% of all Internet traffic goes to just 4,500 Web sites, but what happens when information someone needs is not on a popular site? It is estimated that there are more than 500 billion Web sites on the Internet, which makes the job of finding information daunting --- but not impossible.
To find information, use an Internet search engine such as: www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com, www.aol.com, www.northernlight.com and www.ask.com. More than 90% of surfers regularly use these six Web sites. Google alone is used by about half of all Web surfers. Each search engine has unique qualifications. For example, NorthernLight is the best to use to find information published in magazines or general business information.
A meta-search engine is a portal that sends search query criteria to dozens of search engines. These include www.dogpile.com, www.webcrawler.com and www.searchgateway.com. Additionally, it’s possible to use “human” directories, a searchable listing of Web sites compiled by, you guessed it, humans. These include www.yahoo.com, www.about.com, www.dmoz.com, www.looksmart.com and www.infoplease.com.
Looking for images? Try using http://images.google.com, www.ditto.com and www.altavista.com/image/default. To find people use: www.infospace.com, www.searchgateway.com/finde.htm, http://whitepages.com or http://yellowpages.com. Most have a feature called “reverse lookup” that searches for people’s names by using their phone number or address.
Now let’s learn how to refine a search to minimize the number of results. First, study the unique characteristics of search engines listed in the “help” section or “tutorial.” Next, to locate an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks.
To further refine a search even further, use the minus and/or plus signs. For example, to find information about how tall George Washington was use this search field: “george washington” –university +height. This approach eliminates results from appearing that are related to George Washington University and conversely lists any page with the phrase “George Washington” and the word “height.”
This example shows that creativity is a must in choosing the right search words and that search engine lingo (pluses and minuses) can be used to find something. There are many other tips and techniques that can be used, to explore these option further check out the following links: Finding Information on the Internet...A Tutorial and Search Secrets of the Experts.
If this article is helpful, there are many others online at the VU, a free benefit for Big “I” member agencies. Access this virtual resource and classroom center on any computer by using your personal login provided by the Big “I.” Click here to get started.
This article is adapted from a three-part series titled “How to Find Stuff on the Internet” written by Bill Wilson, director of the Big “I” Virtual. The complete article is available to all Big “I” members free by clicking here.
YOUNG AGENTS Call for YAC 2007 Awards Submissions The Big “I” National Young Agents Committee is seeking submissions for the 2007 YAC awards in the following categories: membership development, state committee project, communications, Young Agents meeting and political involvement. Outstanding Young Agents Committee-of-the Year and first runner-up honors will also be awarded. Participating in the National YAC awards program demonstrates the commitment state young agents and brokers committees have towards perpetuating the independent agency system and solidifies their presence as the driving force behind its future. The 2007 YAC awards will be presented at the 2007 Young Agent Leadership Institute being held in conjunction with the national board of state directors meeting scheduled for Sept. 28 to 30 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, Calif.
Entries must be postmarked by July 1. Visit www.independentagent.com and click on Young Agents and then Tools to download the 2007 YAC Awards Criteria. Direct questions to Katie Cosgrove at 800-221-7917; katie.cosgrove@iiaba.net.
BIG “I” MARKETSSM Event Liability Coverage Available to Members Big “I” members have access to event liability coverage for their clients through Big "I" MarketsSM. It is easy to provide an indication when clients calls inquiring about event insurance. The numerous event categories and rates are posted on the Underwriting and Coverage page of Event Liability at www.bigimarkets.com. The information can be accessed with just one click after logging in. Or visit www.bigimarkets.com and download a copy of the rating guide that has both event categories and rates on one page conveniently sized to fit on the wall beside a phone.
A quick glance at the rating guide will allow agents to give an indication while a client is on the phone. Not only does this save time by saving a return call, it also avoids spending time submitting a request on the system for a client that may or may not be interested. With this an agent can submit quote requests only for coverage the client has already agreed to purchase. Learn more about this and other available products at www.bigimarkets.com.
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