Insurance Illustrated | December 9, 2022

Email HTML Email Text

for the week of December 9, 2022

Education + Analysis for the Independent Agent

Categories Included In This Week's Edition

Advantages of Big 'I' Membership * Homeowners' Insurance * Back to Basics * Commercial Auto * Agency Management * Insurance Laws & Statutes/Coverage Resources

Advantages of Big 'I' Membership

Right Start Training Series

The Big “I” Diversity Council continues to connect with startup agencies across the country to learn about the challenges they face within their new businesses. One of the main obstacles that is consistently brought up is the inability to gain appointments with top carriers. That pain point paved the way for the Right Start Training Series: An Agency Toolkit to Grow Your Business and Build Carrier Loyalty. This four-part training helps developing agencies better position themselves for carrier appointments by showing them how to enhance their business operations, increase employee productivity, build carrier relationships, and establish agency goals.

Homeowners’ Insurance

A Real-World Insurance Learning Laboratory

Although May is the National Wildfire Awareness month, June is the month that brings back memories of the two most catastrophic wildfires in Colorado’s history. A hard lesson learned was how poorly coverage was written for many homeowners.

Client Jewelry and Personal Articles Floater

Homeowner carriers often have restrictions and capacity limitations for jewelry. Many carriers are not willing to write higher-value jewelry. It can be difficult to find a policy that adequately covers jewelry and offers your client a competitive price. A stand-alone jewelry policy (personal articles floater—PAF) with a carrier that does not report jewelry losses to national databases addresses the jewelry need without impacting the homeowners policy.

Insurance Applications: Ambiguities and Lies

An insured’s offer to purchase insurance is made in the form of the application, supposedly completed by the insured. Acceptance flows from the insurance carrier in the form of a policy. Logically, then, the insurance negotiation begins with the application.

Back to Basics

Back to Basics: What is the Excess and Surplus Lines Market?

There are two distinct marketplaces in today’s insurance arena: the admitted market – those insurers that are admitted to write insurance business in the state or country where the insured’s property or business is located, and the surplus lines market, which writes coverage that the carriers do not file with the state’s department of insurance before offering coverage. Surplus lines insurers write unusual or hard-to-place risks, including emerging dangers such as active assailant coverage, risks with high loss experience or unusual risk profiles, or where there is limited capacity in that line of business.

Commercial Auto

Changes to ISO’s Business Auto Coverage Form

Insurance Services Office (ISO) recently introduced several changes to the Business Auto Coverage Form (CA 00 01) with a November 2020 edition date and a proposed effective date of December 1, 2020.

Recent Trucking Spills No Laughing Matter for Transportation Industry

Nuclear verdicts are hitting most insurance sectors, but nowhere is the threat more prevalent than in the trucking industry. From 2010 to 2018, average trucking verdicts over $1 million were up 1,000%. This Burns & Wilcox article details some of the challenges facing trucking companies and their brokers.

Changes to ISO’s Auto Dealer Coverage Form

Insurance Services Office (ISO) recently introduced several changes to its Auto Dealer Coverage Form (CA 00 25) with a November 2020 edition date and a proposed effective date of December 1, 2020. These changes are in response to changes in the business auto program, the general liability program and the dissolution of the garage program.

Agency Management

Dealing with Public Adjusters

Hurricanes and other communal disasters draw public adjusters to the affected areas like sharks to the smell of blood. One public adjuster likened the influx to a pack of wolves stalking prey. Be prepared to advise your clients on the best ways to deal with public adjusters.

Texting Insurance Clients – Best Practices When Texting Clients

The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act requires insurance agents to follow best practices outlined in that legislative rule. The Big “I” Agents Council for Technology offers resources that can help agents comply with the legislation and help ensure agents fully document all text conversations they have with their clients. Following some simple best practices can help all your employee capture all communications with your clients in your agency management system, or otherwise document conversations in your agency’s files.

E&O Risk: Agents, Carriers Urged to Review Web Copy

Lawyers can pull information off an internet archive, such as the Wayback Machine, which retrieves assertions agents have made to long-term clients on earlier versions of websites. When used well, a website is an effective consumer marketing tool. But have you thought about it also as an E&O risk?

Insurance Laws & Statutes / Coverage Resources

Valued Policy States

Download this Valued Policy State list for easy reference.

December

This Issue

Categories

‭(Hidden)‬ Blog Tools

Archive