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T H U R S D A Y , J U L Y 2 8 , 2 0 0 5
Big “I” Convention - Agency Perpetuations 101 | RV Sales Rolling Along
Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Joins Trusted Choice®
The 37th Annual Trusted Choice® Big “I” Junior Classic
Third round of Trusted Choice® TV Advertising | Industry News
B I G “ I ” C O N V E N T I O N
Agency Perpetuation 101
Don’t miss the Best Practices Management Institute workshop “The Nuts and Bolts of Making Internal Perpetuation Work.” Most agencies prefer to perpetuate internally. However, very few agencies actually plan to do so and end up selling to a third-party buyer. This workshop focuses on the issues you need to address to successfully perpetuate your agency. See how some of the best agencies in the country have made internal ownership both a reality and a competitive advantage in attracting the best industry talent.
Speaker Tom Doran joined Reagan Consulting as a consultant in 1993 and became a principal in the firm in 1995. Before joining Reagan Consulting, he worked in the computer industry, both as a software developer and as a management consultant. Doran’s areas of expertise include merger and acquisition representation, agency valuation, ownership perpetuation planning, agency valuation enhancement and strategic planning facilitation.
This workshop is Monday, Sept. 12, at the Best Practices Management Institute at the Big "I" Convention in New York City. It’s not too late to register! Click here for more information. Click here to register.
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B I G “ I ” M A R K E T S
RV Sales Rolling Along
Despite soaring gas prices, America seems to be taking to the road, and many are doing so in recreational vehicles. Factory-to-dealer deliveries of RVs surged to double digits in 2004, according to University of Michigan researcher Dr. Richard Curtin, who produces quarterly forecasts for the RV industry. Not only have sales of RVs increased, but RV owners plan to use their vehicles more this summer than last summer, despite higher gas prices. This finding comes from a newly released “Campfire Canvass” survey of RV owners reported by the Recreational Vehicles Industry Association. Summertime is the peak season for recreational vehicles---make sure you are capturing your share of the RV insurance market by accessing National Interstate's RV insurance program offered through Big “I” Markets, the online market access program available exclusively to Big "I" members.
The National Interstate program offers many different sales opportunities, featuring an extensive acceptability of vehicle usage (including full timer usage and commercial usage), broad acceptance of vehicle value (up to $1,500,000 for motorized units and $150,000 for towables), broad acceptance of vehicle types including medium duty tow vehicles and converted medium duty tow vehicles, broad coverage choices (including availability of total loss replacement for vehicles up to five years old when the insured is the original owner) and broad vehicle ownership acceptability (including LLCs and trusts). Other RV specialty insurers offer one or more of the above, but few, if any, other RV specialty insurance company offers all of these features. Learn more about this and other exceptional products available through Big "I" Markets at www.bigimarkets.com.
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T R U S T E D C H O I C E ®
Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Joins Trusted Choice®
Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance (MEM), based in Columbia, Mo., has joined a growing number of leading carriers participating in Trusted Choice.®
“Independent agencies are the lifeblood of our business and the best partners we could ask for,” says MEM President and CEO Dennis Smith. “We're pleased to join the Trusted Choice® movement to show our support for and commitment to the independent agency system.”
Today more than 5,000 independent insurance agencies and brokerage firms throughout the country are participating in the branding program, as are 30 leading insurance companies.
“We are thrilled to welcome Missouri Employers Mutual to Trusted Choice® and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship,” says Ronald A. Smith, CPCU, Trusted Choice® Board chairman and president of Smith, Sawyer & Smith, Inc., in Rochester, Ind. “The addition of our 30th company demonstrates the continuing growth of the Trusted Choice® brand and what it stands for.”
“Like all Trusted Choice® companies, Missouri Employers Mutual recognizes the importance of brand excellence to consumers,” says Big “I” CEO Robert A. Rusbuldt. “We are excited the company has joined the Trusted Choice® brand movement. We look forward to working with them to carry the Trusted Choice® message to their consumers as well as to their agency partners.”
MEM is the largest workers’ compensation insurer in Missouri. Since opening its doors for business March 1, 1995, the company has been dedicated to providing policyholders with exceptional customer service, quality-loss prevention expertise and timely claims management. With nearly 18,000 policyholders, MEM is the No. 1 choice of Missouri employers for workers compensation insurance. The company writes more than 500 different classes of business in all 114 Missouri counties.
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Trusted Choice® Big “I” Classic Features U.S. Amateur Champion
The 37th Annual Trusted Choice® Big “I” Junior Classic, one of the nation’s leading junior golf tournaments, will include the newly crowned 2005 U.S. Junior Amateur boys’ champion and the niece of this year’s British Open champion.
Kevin Tway, son of successful PGA pro Bob Tway, won the U.S. Junior event by four strokes last week at Longmeadow Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., and never trailed during the 36-hole event.
Tway, 17, of Edmond, Okla., finished in the top five among 111 boys ages 13 to 18 in the 2004 classic, held at Dornick Hills Country Club in Ardmore, Okla.
Tway is not the only participant in this year’s Trusted Choice® Big “I” Junior Classic with golf in their bloodlines. Cheyenne Woods, niece of newly crowned British Open champion Tiger Woods, makes her second appearance in the Classic this year. Woods, 15, of Phoenix, finished in the top five among 54 girls ages 13 to 18 at last year’s Classic in Ardmore. Her uncle twice won this event as a teenager in the 1990s when it was known as the Independent Insurance Agent Junior Classic (IIAJC).
Tway and Woods are among several of the top players from last year’s event who will return this year for the Classic, which will be held July 31 through Aug. 4 at the Kampen Course of the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex on the Purdue University campus.
“The Trusted Choice® Big ‘I’ Junior Classic always features many of the nation’s leading junior golfers, and to have the U.S. Junior Open champion among them is a testament to the quality of players who will compete in this event,” says Bob Bramlett, the event’s national chairman and an independent insurance agent in Oklahoma. “This tournament will feature some of the leading up-and-comers, golfers you can expect to see competing—and winning—on the PGA and LPGA tours in the future.”
In addition to Tiger Woods (1990, 1992) and Bob Tway (1976), other notable past champions of the event include Billy Andrade (1980, 1981), Cristie Kerr (1994, 1995), Candie Kung (1998, 1999), Bobby Clampett (1975), Chris Smith (1986), Justin Leonard (1989), Kellee Booth (1993) and Grace Park (1996). David Duval, Phil Mickelson and Fuzzy Zoeller also competed in the event, which has been played annually since 1969. The girls’ division began in 1993.
More than 8,000 boys and girls compete nationally to earn a spot in the finals—a 72-hole, stroke-play tournament. Additionally, more than 2,000 independent agents help organize and administer the state and local qualifying tournaments that determine the final fields of 108 boys and 54 girls.
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National Ads to Air in September
The third round of Trusted Choice® nationwide television advertising this year will air Sept. 12 through 25. This is a great opportunity for your agency to run a local advertising campaign to tie into the national ad flight. The ads, which will be seen by millions of consumers from coast to coast, will run ESPN, Fox News, Turner Network Television (TNT), The History Channel, and Home & Garden Television (HGTV). In all, 57 spots will air nationwide during many top-rated cable shows, including “SportsCenter” and Major League Baseball on ESPN, “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News, primetime programming on HGTV, primetime movies on TNT and The History Channel’s “Modern Marvels.” The ads will introduce consumers to the Trusted Choice® brand and educate them on the valuable services—choice of companies, customized policies and advocacy support—provided by Trusted Choice® agencies. Click here to view the complete nationwide ad flight schedule. You can customize TV, radio and print ads to run in your local area. Each ad explains the benefits of using a Trusted Choice® agency and you can add or tag your agency’s name and contact information to the ad. Your local advertising campaign will give your agency twice the exposure for a small investment and help establish your agency as the Trusted Choice® for local insurance and financial services consumers. The television ads are in addition to an Internet ad campaign currently running on www.Homestore.com. Go to the “Agents/Brokers” area of www.TrustedChoice.com and click on “Advertising” to view and order or download the tag-able ads and to learn how to conduct local TV, radio and print advertising campaigns.
Contact Ines Hoyle at ines.hoyle@iiaba.net if you need your agency username and password to access this secured area. For more information, contact Jeff Myers at jeff.myers@iiaba.net; Stacy Heatherington at stacy.heatherington@iiaba.net; 800-221-7917.
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