I am honored to have clients who endeavor to be the most professional and ethical agents and brokers possible. I have noticed that many are tired. They feel like they are pushing a Sisyphean boulder. The playing field is not level, favoring the unethical and stupid. Here are a few examples where carriers and regulators might assist, and in doing so, assist the public. 1. Rebating. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet." --Shakesp

Flood claims are awful. If you have ever had or dealt with water damage, much less a flood, you know the damage and repairs never seem to end. A house burns down and is rebuilt. A house floods and where does one even begin tearing down and then rebuilding? A reasonable person might think humans would avoid building in flood-prone areas, right? We all know that if a government provides subsidized flood insurance, at least in our society, people will definitely build in areas c

E&O claims will increase because private equity is funding plaintiffs' suits. It is really pretty simple. Many people and attorneys cannot afford to bring suits using only their own financial resources. Additional funding can greatly help them bring suits. More businesses have suffered losses, not necessarily insurance claims, due to the economic shutdown than any time since the Great Depression. A lot of pain exists. A lot of anger exists. If someone gives you a lifeline, yo

I have seen a few articles recently that have focused on and/or were titled "Hyper Personal" Personal Insurance. Like lots of things, it does not sound that good to me, but a creative marketing person has probably discovered this phrase sounds good to consumers. The idea is that someone or something, not necessarily an agency or even a person as it could easily be a software program, will hyper personalize a consumer's insurance experience relative to identifying their insura

So do I. I'd like the answers to life. I watched Monte Python's "The Meaning of Life" and I still don't have the answers to life's questions. I have read Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes, Mills, Veblen, the Bible, and not least, Calvin and Hobbes. I still don't have the answers. I reduced my goal to understanding certain aspects of the tax code. One part in particular is running to 600 pages now, and I gave up because the lack of logic contained therein could only be

And here are a few reasons why: $2.3 billion was invested between January 1, 2019 and June 30, 2019 in litigation funds. That number is expected to increase materially going forward. These are funds to which investors give litigators money to pursue lawsuits in return for some portion of the winnings. These funds enable law firms to invest more time and more effort into more suits. The law firms don't get the investors' monies if they don't pursue more and more profitable lit

Or else better marketers will convince consumers they are more ethical than you. A recent story caught my attention and ire. The story was a press release from an Insurtech start-up. What first caught my eye was how the start-up measured success in coverage placed, i.e., total policy limits rather than premiums or commissions, to make themselves look successful. For people who don't know the difference, it was impressive that a 12-person start-up agency could place $2 billion

While some law firms are laying off and partners are taking pay cuts, two kinds of law firms seem to be reviewing summer boat catalogs: Lobbyists and Plaintiffs. Regarding whether coverage exists for business interruption claims, let's get past the argument common to two-year-olds where the answer to everything is: "No." This argument is pointless on multiple levels: There’s only about a jillion different insurance forms so any kind of uniform answer to whether coverage exist

Most insurance is sold poorly. That is not a judgment or an opinion. It is a provable fact, and based on all the E&O audits I've completed and education classes I've taught, the facts are clearly visible. There is little doubt if one looks at the data unemotionally. (Some people confuse an agent’s ability to sell insurance coverage correctly with selling coverage correctly -- two different facets.) Insurance sold poorly, over and over and over again, is evidence of a business

Every agency receives requests for questionable actions from its clients and their advisors, banks and sometimes even governmental entities. The best and most common example of these requests involves certificates of insurance. In most agencies, probably daily, someone requests a certificate of insurance where fulfilling that request would be problematic. The problem is on a spectrum from just slightly not right to downright illegal (legal vs. illegal at a criminal level depe

There are stupid questions, and there are questions that indicate the questioner is not that knowledgeable in an area in which they should already be knowledgeable. In both scenarios, the questioner still needs to learn. But our human egos are so powerful they keep most audience members (except the guy that always knows it all) silent. I see this when I teach classes and when I take classes. People are scared of embarrassment. They are afraid of their boss discovering their d

Archaeologists from the University of YaYa Positive Thinking announced they have discovered why the robust insurance distribution system known as Independent Agencies (IA) failed after nearly 175 years of success. The IA system was unique among sales and distribution systems of businesses of all kinds and lasted longer than almost any comparable industry distribution system. The players remained smaller than almost any other distributor too. For almost eight generations, the

Increase Sales! Absolutely, each and every sale will increase an agency’s E&O exposures. No question exists about this fact. The more surgeries a surgeon does, the more medical malpractice exposures he/she will have. In other words, to have a thriving agency, one has to accept the risk of ever-increasing E&O exposures. The goal should be that, with practice making near perfection, the exposure on any given account actually decreases with more sales. This decrease is not happe

Credit must go to Bill Wilson at InsuranceCommentary for this great line, "Knowledge by Folklore." These three words sum up, so perfectly, how coverage knowledge is transferred and how underwriting rules are learned. The resulting comedies and tragedies are protected by confidentiality agreements. Otherwise, the Greek comedies/tragedies would have serious challengers for the genre. I am not exaggerating. Some of the stories are so comedic, and others ruin lives. ​ Here are so

"...it's such a drag when you're livin' in the past" -- Tom Petty I was conducting an E&O audit, and as is common, the owners, staff, and producers all lamented the loss of the good old days when company partnerships existed, and agents could trust their clients. I am not sure when those days existed. When I was younger, I thought those were the days before my time. Now my experience covers most insurance veterans' "old days." Maybe the frequency of insurance company issues a

Some prospect calls Agency X to insure their home and auto. The CSR gets the data required to determine the replacement cost on the house, asks about liability limits, and hopefully recommends appropriate endorsements (but probably does not in the real world beyond replacement cost). Business A calls Agency X, or better yet, a producer in Agency X calls Business A. Let's name the producer "Joe." Joe solicits Business A and gets the opportunity to quote the account. Joe gets t

​Virtually every company/agency contract has the same clause regarding agents advising clients on claims. It states something like this, "Agent shall notify Company immediately of all claims or potential claims." It goes, or should go, without saying, this implies (and other provisions are often explicit) the agency is not to advise clients claims will or will not be paid. Most agents get this part clearly. ​ What most agents in my experience have difficulty understanding is

The title alone may elicit anger, bewilderment, curiosity and who knows what other emotions. The reason these movements and cultures are similar is they promise regular people some advantage based on an obvious current disadvantage. But then they take advantage of these same people. ​In his writings, Marx analyzed the serious disadvantages existing then that extremely few people could ever break through to achieve a decent life. People were actually shrinking in size, physica

By pure chance, at a completely non-insurance event, I found myself seated next to a deputy commissioner of insurance for a prominent state. This deputy commissioner, when he learned through the pleasantries of exchanging minor personal information around the table that I consulted for insurance agencies, let me know in no uncertain terms that he thought agents were mostly scumbags. It was a wonderful way to embark upon a two-hour dinner with strangers. His perspective was th

Here’s a true story: A close friend asked me about her auto insurance. Her daughter, who does not live with her, was still on her auto policy. Her daughter’s car was on her policy too. She had no insurable interest on her daughter’s car. Moreover, her daughter is married and she is not a driver on her husband’s auto policy, even though she has an insurable interest on her husband’s auto. My friend’s agent advised it was just easier to leave her daughter on her policy. When I