On Point with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.

Paul Peeples, AAI, AIT, CPIM is Vice President of Information Systems at Florida Association of Insurance Agents (FAIA). His technology background, coupled with over 20 years experience in the insurance industry, has provided FAIA innovative ways to communicate with independent agents. In this episode, Paul tells Peter and Rick about ACT’s growing arsenal of social media resources, about life on the leading edge of technology and about FAIA’s free weekly “radio show” called Friday Morning Live!

The podcast was published Monday, March 1, 2010. Run time is 25 minutes 27 seconds.

That’s according to research with 4,600 consumers conducted in October 2009 by Forrester Research Inc. and reported by Mark Ruquet in an article in National Underwriter Property & Casualty.

This research scored independent agents at 74 percent, which Forrester dubs as “okay.”

“Okay” can have a couple of meanings: “pretty good” and “mediocre.” My sense is that the research points to the latter meaning.

The survey also asked consumers to rate insurance carriers for three aspects of service:
– “meets needs” … the rating was “good”
– “easy to work with” … the rating was “okay”
– “enjoyable” … the rating was “good”

Insurance carrier USAA was the highest rated of 13 insurers, leading the way with a score of 82 percent, nine points ahead of the next-best company in the research. No carrier reached Forrester’s standard for excellent of 85 percent.

The insurance business overall scored “okay” with a median percentage of 72 percent.

The National Underwriter article noted that the study’s researcher reported: “For agents, the customer experience is tied to how well the carrier treats its customers…. When the carrier is not committed, it reflects on the agent.”

Here’s more on the study from Laura Mazzucca Toops of insurance trade publication American Agent and Broker, who wonders why “independent insurance agents don’t get no respect.”

Is an “okay” rating good enough for the independent insurance agents out there? My sense is that independent agents work far too hard to settle for that. What do you think?

– Charles Wasilewski

Wrong.

The biggest category for increased marketing spending in 2010 will be: E-mail.

That’s according to the 2010 marketing trends survey conducted by StrongMail Systems, a provider of e-mail marketing and social media services.

The article reports on a survey of 1,000 respondents notes:
– 69% plan to increase spending on email marketing.
– 59% plan to increase spending on social media.
– 42% plan to increase spending on search marketing.

(Arguably, an e-mail services company would be inclined to be bullish on e-mail services. And there’s still healthy growth forecast for social media spending. But putting those points aside, it’s interesting that marketers are investing more in the more-established marketing tool of e-mail marketing than in any other.)

Moreover, 89% plan to increase or maintain marketing budgets in 2010: 48% plan to increase; 41% plan to maintain.

– Charles Wasilewski

The Personal Lines Opportunity

On Point with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.

IIABA’s annual market share study compares the share of the property / casualty business on commercial and personal lines bases, and compares the aggregate of the independent agent to the captive agent.

Personal lines insurance is a tremendous source of revenue. Asa Pike and John McDonald of Agency Revenue Tools, a software company created to help agents go after personal lines insurance, explain the potential of the personal lines opportunity, and discuss the benefits of the Personal Lines Growth Alliance as a tool to capitalize on the potential.

The podcast was published Monday, February 15, 2010. Run time is 24 minutes 55 seconds.

On Point with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.

“Don’t be a binge blogger.”

These are the words of Liz Strauss, a blogger and social media educator, when discussing the importance of consistency over frequency. Other advice for new bloggers includes: using free web analytics to monitor metrics; using FAQs as initial blog posts; and the importance of a really good headline on a blog post.

Here’s another: “You are the chef that provides the content that Google serves up.”

Enjoy other morsels of blogging wisdom at Liz’s April SOBCon in Chicago, follow Liz on Twitter, or tune into this tasty episode.

The podcast was published Monday, February 1, 2010. Run time is 27 minutes 15 seconds.

Risk-modeling firm Risk Management Solutions estimated that the Haitian earthquake killed an estimated 250,000 people and destroyed more than 4,000 buildings in Port-au-Prince, according to an article in insurance trade publication National Underwriter. The publication also reported that the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (a risk pooling facility that includes the Haiti government), will receive less than $8 million for earthquake damage.

The road to recovery looks long and difficult for everyone in the small island nation, which before the earthquake already faced overwhelming poverty. But the world rallied to the side of the Haitian people, with military, financial, food, water and other resources being brought to Haiti in the days following the quake. The efforts range from the donation bins that sprang up in fast-food restaurants (see photo), to a text-message fund-raising campaign, to thousands of U.S. Marines, to multiple charitable donations from insurance firms in the United States.

Haiti relief donation box in a New Jersey fast-food restaurant

A recent article from Trusted Choice, the brand campaign launched by the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, reported another number: 5,000. That’s how many earthquakes are felt in the United States each year.

Many Americans may think California is the state at most risk of an earthquake. Since 1900, though, earthquakes have caused damage in all 50 states, according to information from the Insurance Information Institute. California is at greatest risk for widespread and catastrophic damage to property, however. In 2006, a forecast  from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Southern California Earthquake Center, and the State Geological Survey said that the state is likely to be struck by a major earthquake by 2028.

But only 12 percent of Californians own earthquake insurance, according to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.). That’s sharply lower than 30 percent in 1996 (when California was in recovery from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which at an estimated $20 billion in property damage was the most-costly quake in U.S. history).

Whose job is it to change this before the “big one” hits? Ultimately, it’s the responsibility of property owners. But isn’t it almost always true that when a community recovers from a disaster, there’s a team of local insurance professionals behind it? And independent insurance agents often are the captains of those local teams.

– Charles Wasilewski

Almost. It was enjoyable but not quite easy. But I learned some lessons nonetheless.

A skilled (and younger) relative let me play the Rockband drums while she played guitar. As a kid, I often dreamed of playing drums, but was sentenced by my Mother to six months of piano lessons (which I dropped as soon as I could, since they took place during after-school playtime in my neighborhood). Another problem was that I have a short supply of musical talent, but that’s probably why I’m sitting at a computer keyboard and not a piano keyboard.

Anyway, for those not familiar with Rockband, this game gives you visual and aural cues that prompt you to play the drum beats on a drum pad, pluck notes using a faux guitar, or sing with the microphone to classic Beatles songs.

I set the drum pads to the easiest level on the Rockband game. It took a song or two to get acquainted with the color sequence that cued the drum beats for me. Then it took a couple more songs to recognize that each song had different beat patterns, and that I should try to remember the beat patterns so I could repeat them later in the song. Then I learned that I could do a repetitive beat pretty well on one drum pad, but had trouble doing sequences of different drums.

With each successful drum beat (the game gives you feedback so you know if you’ve hit the correct drum pad at the correct time), I gained a bit of confidence. With each missed beat (there were many), I got a bit more determined to learn from what I’d done and get it right the next time. I got scores in the high 80s (Rockband tells you the percentage of correct drum beats or notes that you hit) and even in the 90s. After about 15 songs, my arms were tired. Five more songs later, I’d had enough.

I found myself thinking later that trying Rockband was like learning to use social media: There are elements of the familiar (in Rockband, the Beatles songs; in social media, the person-to-person conversations) and the new (in Rockband, the game itself and the Wii system; in social media, the systems and cultures of social networking sites Facebook and Twitter).

It’s the familiarity that enables us to try social media. But it’s the new stuff that can hold us back.

A recent American Agent and Broker survey showed that independent insurance agents are mostly stuck, either not yet bothering to try social media or struggling to get over the hurdles (and there are many, as our Aartrijk Brand Camp research showed). Laura Mazzucca Toops’s study in the December 2009 issue of the magazine found that 20 percent of agents/brokers in a reader poll said they are considering using social networking for marketing. But fewer than 25 percent currently use it.

That’s not a criticism, by the way, since many are already in patterns of success in their business and may not be motivated to change or try something new.

A few other lessons learned from my holiday fun, which might apply to both video games and social networking:

– Ask the young for help. My young relatives both laughed at me and guided me. I caught on to a key Rockband tip (you don’t have to smash the drum pads, just tap them) after about five or six gentle reminders from a niece.

– It might be fun to try, but you’ve got to have success to keep going. It took about two drum beats to realize I was not going to replace Ringo Starr on the drum kit in a Beatles reunion. I realized that success was something different: just trying to play along and doing my best while enjoying the music and the camaraderie.

– Learn your style. In Rockband, after a few songs I recognized that I was focused on the visual clues on the screen, and less on the audio part of the game. It’s probably in line with my skill set of writing that I work more visually that verbally. The others playing the game seemed to operate more on the audible parts of the game. To each his own. That probably applies to social networking, too: Some like to interact a lot and with long posts; others are briefer and less frequent.

– Charles Wasilewski

As Allstate’s social media manager, Marcia Hansen oversees Vehicle Vibes, an automotive blog geared toward women and young adults, and Friender Benders.com, an entertaining and irreverent user-generated content portal. Marcia is also the host of Vehicle Vibes Radio, live at 10am Central on Tuesdays.

As Allstate’s social media guru, Marsha was also a presenter at Aartrijk’s Brand Camp, talking about her role in marketing and the importance of listening to customers and prospects.

The podcast was published Monday, December 28, 2009. Run time is 29 minutes 3 seconds.

In the eleventh episode, Peter and Rick talk with Chris Jordan of Atlanta Insurance Live in Atlanta, Georgia. Chris argues using video and live chat promotes transparency and gives agency owners and agents new ways to connect with their customers. Facebook, Twitter and the other social web tools add to his social media arsenal and provide an avenue to connect and establish relationships.

The podcast was published Monday, December 14, 2009. Run time is 18 minutes 23 seconds.

The auto insurer in 2004 created “Erin Esurance” (a cartoon character fighting off villains to insure her car) to deliver the message: it’s easy to quote-buy-print your auto insurance policy. Esurance’s brand and advertising icon are well known in the 30 states in which the insurer does business, primarily because of $94 million of TV advertising in 2008. What’s more, according to TNS Media Intelligence, Esurance has pumped up its TV ad buy by 45% thus far in 2009.

But TV advertising isn’t enough, curiously. Esurance also has made a commitment to use social media sites to follow up with customers after the sale, Swigert said. He cited an example of a Esurance customer who complained on Twitter: “@Esurance is saying my policy with $55k coverage doesn’t cover my roommates things. This is not going to be fun.”

To make a long story (about a month long, it turns out) short, Esurance’s eagle-eyed social media monitors replied to the customer via Twitter, then got in touch by e-mail and resolved the issue to the customer’s satisfaction. Esurance got a public thank you, noted Swigert, from the customer: “@Esurance Thank you for everything! You really came through. Guess I’m a customer for life now.”

That’s a nice ending to the story for Esurance.

But there’s also some good news in this story for independent insurance agents and brokers: Even the big ad spenders need to work one-on-one with customers. That kind of personal follow-up and response to consumers is what independent insurance agencies do every day of the week.

The big-ad-spender brands have to perform on the same nitty-gritty issues (read: claims) as do independent agents and their carriers. The difference today is that social media has made the process viewable to others, if and when any given consumer chooses to make it public. There’s a new public record, and it’s called “social media.”

Independent agents who are active in social networking have had this epiphany. Here’s what Nibby Priest of Vaughn Insurance Agency Co., Henderson, Kentucky, said in an Insurance Journal Webinar in September:

Q: In opening up your business to Facebook fan page, you are obviously opening up your business to negative feedback. How do handle negative comments?

Nibby Priest: “That’s a great question. Sometimes people don’t want to be a part of social media because they don’t want somebody to say something negative. You know bad things are not always bad; sometimes you need to know about them. So many times a client will leave you and you don’t even know what you did wrong. So, at least this gives an avenue and gives you, as business owners, the opportunity to go in there and correct it.”

Enough said.