As a private investigator, your job description can entail many different things. Background checks, surveillance, and missing persons are just a few of the services your business may be offering. Since your company probably offers some of these unique services, having the right type of P.I. insurance is essential.

You probably already know you will need general liability insurance. This type of insurance covers the basics: legal fees, medical expenses, and personal or property damage in the event that someone were to sue you. But did you know that this kind of coverage is simply not enough when it comes to your private investigation business?

General liability is not as comprehensive as professional liability insurance when it comes to what you need covered as a private investigator. These are a few of the areas in which a professional liability would keep you covered:

• Errors & Omissions
• Assault & Battery
• False Arrest
• Invasion of Privacy
• Libel & Slander
• Personal Injury

Suppose while investigating a case, you accidentally cause a suspect you are following to get injured. Perhaps you are completing a background check for a client and forget to disclose important information about an employee. Maybe you got caught snooping through someone’s trash? All of these are grounds for someone to file a lawsuit against you, and general liability won’t be of much help in these circumstances. Professional liability insurance will help you in these areas should you unfortunately get sued.

For more information on the best coverage for your P.I. agency, be sure to talk to one of our independent agents and request a free quote below!

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The unimaginable has happened – you’ve dropped your shiny new (or not so new) camera and it broke into several different pieces. Everyone with a camera has been there before, whether you’re a professional photographer or just an amateur snapping photos, knowing what to do next is vital to the future of your camera! Here are the first five steps you should take after dropping your camera:

1.Check for any visible damage

First thing you need to do when your drop your camera is check for missing pieces. You’ll want to check the surrounding ground and pick up all the pieces that may have come off in the fall, especially if you are in a public place because the pieces can become quickly scattered. All these pieces are necessary (even if they don’t look it) to putting it back together.

2.Take out the battery

If the battery didn’t come off already, be sure to take it out now! By powering off your camera, you are avoiding any further damage that might occur. Often if your camera is still functioning partially, more damage might occur.

3.Take out your memory card

Your data card is pretty sturdy, so just because your camera is broken, does not mean that your data is too. Some jarring or even a quick dunk in a puddle won’t erase what you had on the card. In all likelihood, all of your information is safe, so don’t forget to remove the card!

4.Check your warranty

When you bought your camera, odds are it came with a warranty or perhaps you purchased one. If so, hopefully you saved the information somewhere easily retrievable. If you camera is actually under warranty, it may help cover the costs of damage repair or even completely replace your equipment all together. Be sure, however, to check the specifics of what exactly is covered and for how long.

5.Check your insurance

Is your camera insured? You can put things like your camera and it’s equipment on a home owners policy, but more comprehensive coverage would be to actually buy camera insurance. Insurance for your camera gear is a great idea if you have multiple pieces of expensive equipment, and simply want the best coverage. This policy can cover you when you’re on the go, shooting on location and anything in between.

If you take immediate action and follow these simple steps, you’ll be more likely to salvage your equipment and data. So next time you accidentally drop you camera, don’t worry, you know how to handle this!

Hard insurance markets are bittersweet. On one hand, it’s a great opportunity to grow commissions simply by renewing accounts. On the other hand, renewing those clients becomes a lot harder thanks to tighter underwriting guidelines and rate increases.

So how can insurance agents position themselves to win in a hard market?

Here are several strategies to help you keep more business during a hard market.

Prepare Your Customers For What’s Coming

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to get bad news early, so I can prepare for what’s coming. Now, I’m not suggesting you turn into Chicken Little in front of your clients. That will most certainly send them running into the comforting arms of another agent. But, having a frank discussion with them about the likelihood of rising insurance cost and possible cancellation by their current carrier will help them not to panic when those things happen at their next policy expiration.

Prepping your clients prior to their renewal gives you more control over the situation and allows you an opportunity to map out your game plan for them, putting their mind more at ease.

Don’t go visit your client to deliver the news cold, by the way. Just like you’re about to prep them, do some preparation yourself. Use some of your super sexy digital-age insurance agent tricks and put your renewal strategy in a short presentation on your iPad. Without making a big deal about the iPad, just start going through the plan with your client. They might not say it, but they’ll feel more confident knowing you’re using modern tools to help them. People tend to gravitate toward forward thinking people, so use technology to your advantage whenever you can.

Don’t Throw Your Current Carrier Under The Bus

For many producers, I think the knee jerk reaction to a significant price increase is to shop coverage elsewhere. Because that’s certainly what your client will expect you to do, right?

You can still shop coverage, and in many cases, that’s the responsible thing to do for your client. But, while you’re doing your due diligence, don’t be too quick to count your current carrier out of the game. You may be able to work something out.

Theron Mathis wrote a great article called Insurance Customer Retention: A Tale Of Two Agencies. Theron does a wonderful job of illustrating what makes for good customer retention and what doesn’t. He suggests that while walking customers through a premium increase, you should do everything possible to avoid shopping policies first.

Using a checklist of things to try before shopping a customer’s policy can save producers, client service reps and underwriters a lot of time on the front end.

Before ditching your client’s current carrier, take a look at:

• deductibles
• discounts
• replacement values
• additional coverages that add more value for the client for minimal cost
• and most importantly…discussing with your underwriter all other options to reverse the increase

Take Inventory Of Your Carriers And Their Appetites

Rate increases and policy non-renewals are often followed by a mad rush of submissions to your most familiar carriers. That’s understandable.

If you’re lucky enough to have access to a number of markets, though, revisit the ones you don’t use that often.

As with life itself, when chaos ensues, sometimes the best thing is to stop what you’re doing and take a step back to evaluate your options. In a hard market, take the time to get reacquainted with your market’s appetites. You might be surprised at what’s available for your clients, both price and coverage.

Offer Your Clients Proof Of Your Marketing Efforts

Normally, this goes against typical producer behavior. Playing your cards close to your vest usually protects the markets you’re using, lest your client tell another agent, and then…BAM!…BOR letter.

But in a hard market, when your customer is already frustrated with increased price and possibly decreased coverage, they want to know that you’re actually working for them.

You must prove to your clients that you’ve gone to battle for them.

Failing to do so could very well push them to find an agent who does appear to work hard to earn their business.

If you’re still skittish about showing your cards, be upfront with them about why. They’ll respect your integrity and your tenacity to win their business. Offer to show them all the quotes you secured with the carrier names whited out. In place of the names, you might consider writing in each carrier’s A.M. Best rating to prove that these are reputable markets.

Develop Better Rapport Throughout The Year

This holds true for normal or soft markets, too. You may think you have a good working relationship with your client. But if you don’t stay in front of them on a regular basis, you’re leaving yourself open for a future breakup.

I’m not saying you need to be in their office every week or even every month. Face time is great, but there are so many ways you can develop rapport using social media these days. Using these tools will allow you more time to get out there and develop new relationships…..with prospects!

Conclusion

Although hard markets make it challenging for insurance agents to renew their clients, there are plenty of ways to hold your ground. Most importantly, don’t panic! Take a step back. Assess your threats and opportunities. And then fight hard for every client you have!

What strategies do you use in a hard market to keep your clients on the books?

Health insurance in the United States is undergoing radical changes due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its many provisions. From October 2013 going forward, the market will be vastly different from what we presently accept for underwriting rules, premium rates, and coverage.Several healthcare coverage options will disappear, like limited benefit plans from private insurers, state risk pools, and the temporary federal risk pool option.

A brand new source of individual and small business insurance will be available, as well, if you trust a last-minute government affair touted to provide better services than the private market – the insurance exchanges. Though these new policies should be helping Americans get more out of their health plan than ever before, including tax credits to lower premiums, many states have yet to establish their program.

Enrollment for health insurance exchanges will begin in October for the coming year, when the new healthcare law kicks in fully.

New Options: Choosing A Plan Under Health Reform

The health reform law is inescapable at this point: whether you’re not quite sure it’s going to work, hoping for the best, or weren’t on board to begin with, insurance options will vary greatly from previous years.

Let’s start by looking at how the private market will change, and your options therein. Then, we’ll explore the new choices in public health care, including Medicaid expansion and the government-sponsored individual plans on the exchange:

• Individual Plans

  Nondiscrimination laws under the ACA are adjusting underwriting rules such that insurers can only rate up for age and tobacco use, and must accept all applicants for coverage despite their risk. Benefit requirements will also change, as health plans must offer certain products that meet state and federal compliance for “essential health benefits.”

  For consumers, the advantage is getting accepted by reputable major medical insurance companies instead of resorting to a public plan when you get obscene rate-ups or declined completely. The downside is that we currently have no idea how much premiums will cost next year, and it may get interesting. Industry experts project that low risk policyholders could take on the financial risk of the freshly accepted sick plan members, resulting in unjustly higher premiums for certain groups. Some insurers may allow you to extend your current individual plan for another year without conforming to health reform laws, however.

  Those who support the law feel this projection about rate increases is an exaggerated figure and simply another complaint from the health insurance industry about healthcare reform. Either way, no one can be sure how the law will affect premiums in 2014, though the feds are firmly reassuring the public that rates will stay reasonable.

• Employer-Sponsored Coverage

  One solution is to stay on your group plan, if you have that preferable choice. These plans are also subject to change, as the new law requires more active utilization of wellness programs to improve health, within reason. Wellness programs through group insurance will be more involved, making sure individuals with health problems are seeking the free help their plan is providing. However, the employer cannot offer a wellness program that is too strict or unrealistic, in order to maintain fairness.

  Not very much will change in terms of benefits and cost sharing, therefore you may have a potentially easier time than others in paying for and using your coverage. Employers are required to offer a certain set of benefits, to all full-time employees, if they were not already under the law. This has caused many larger corporations (mostly food franchises, such as Olive Garden) to attempt hiring more part-time workers in order to avoid lost income, though they found little success. If your job does not offer sufficient coverage, you can enroll in an individual plan or exchange plan.

  Employers also have the option of offering their workers a voucher for an exchange plan in an equivalent amount to the highest amount of coverage they offer, which certain companies seem hesitant to use.

• The Online Marketplace

  Health insurance exchanges are operated either by each state or the federal government, providing individual and small business plans with benefits similar to a comprehensive group health plan. These plans will include every category of essential benefits (hospital, prevention, maternity, emergency, prescriptions, pediatric, mental health, etc.) and be eligible for use with tax credits to lower premiums.

  Expecting to insure the millions of people who don’t qualify for Medicaid yet can’t afford a private health plan, exchanges will be open to anyone who wants to test them out. If you want to have a child next year, are still unable to pay for a private plan, or want access to some form of care your insurance doesn’t cover, these are your back up plan.

• Medicaid Expansion

  If your income is very low, but you haven’t been able to make the cut for Medicaid in the past because you don’t have children or a disability, your time has come. In many states, the Medicaid program will accept a new eligibility group in order to insure a wider population of needy individuals.

  Those who make up to 138 percent of the poverty guideline will be able to receive free and low-cost healthcare through their state’s public assistance program. 25 states presently plan to implement this provision.

Determining The Most Affordable Plan

Which coverage will actually save you the most money? It depends on what you qualify for. If you’re eligible for Medicaid, you won’t pay anything for coverage, which is clearly your best bet.

As the window of Medicaid eligibility is small compared to the country as a whole, individual plans through an insurer or the exchange may cost about the same, although no one is certain. The government is currently guiding consumers toward exchanges and subsidies as the most budget-friendly route, which may be true. Until we know how much individual health plans will cost on the private market, through trusted insurers like Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, we will technically be unable to determine the answer.

Before the new health plans are offered through private insurers, exchange plans will have already been released, getting a head start when enrollment begins in October 2013. If you stay on your employer’s plan, you have the right to compare prices with the exchange and individual insurance if you find a better deal. At the time, it does seem the exchanges may be the most cost-effective, especially for those who are just barely over the Medicaid requirements. This population will likely be unable to afford coverage on the private market, and it will help insure this group of earners.

Whether or not you want to buy your health insurance from the government is another factor. The tax on being uninsured will be far less than the cost of coverage, so you still have a choice if you prefer paying for medical care out-of-pocket and avoiding the system.

Did you know that generally, churches are not exempt from workers compensation laws? A lack of insurance coverage will not protect your church from liability in the event there is a work-related injury or illness.

Injuries and illness due to work-related accidents are not all that uncommon at churches. Specifically, you will find that many of these accidents occur to your volunteers. Volunteers make up the majority of the workers you will find in churches. Think of all the ways your members volunteer their time:

• Community Service Projects
• Fundraising Events
• Mission Work
• After School Program
• Sunday School
• Social Functions
• Deaconing

Let’s say a member is working on a church service project, where your organization helps to clean up a local park, and this member inadvertently injures their back while volunteering. Is the church held liable since the volunteer was working on behalf of the church? While volunteers do not make any money and are not technical employees of the church, if they suffer injuries in the course of their volunteer work, they may be entitled to some sort of compensation.

Volunteer Waivers And Orientation

When creating your insurance policy for your church, you will want to specifically stipulate what sort of workers compensation coverage volunteers will or will not receive. In many cases, some liability can be avoided with volunteer waiver forms. Volunteer waivers are written statements in which the volunteer agrees to assume the risk of injury or illness that they might sustain while working as a volunteer. Websites such as www.legalzoom.com can offer you releases such as these. By having your volunteers sign these forms, you can ensure that some of the church’s liability involved with these events will be negated.

It is also a good idea to think about having volunteer orientations, especially for large or risky projects. This way you can go over safety procedures, protocols and training for large groups of volunteers. This would also be an appropriate time to hand out waiver forms for your members to sign. By doing these things, your volunteer assumes a lot of the risk involved with these events.

We can answers your questions and get you a free quote today!

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Many churches and other religious organizations have vans and buses 1. Because the can hold a lot of people at one time and 2. They are usually relatively cheap to purchase. There are many safety factors however that you are exposed to that can cause a serious amount of liability in the event there is an accident.

What Are You Transporting?

The first question any insurer will want to know is what you are actually transporting with your church vehicle. If you only use your van to pick up or transport supplies and equipment, your insurance policy will be significantly different than if you are transporting people. Once you start transporting people (Staff, volunteers, members) your risk increases drastically.

The Danger

The types of vehicles that many churches use to transport members pose certain dangers:

• They many not be equipped with seat belts
• If there are seat belts, many choose to forego them
• These large vehicles can be top heavy and prone to tipping and rolling
• Often the operator of the vehicle has not had proper driving training for vans/buses or does not have the correct commercial driving license

Safety Precautions

So to reduce your risk be certain your vehicle has seat belts and that passengers wear them at ALL times. Have every driver be properly trained and licensed to operate a commercial type vehicle. Also, make sure you always keep up routine maintenance on your van or bus and save all documentation that indicates so. If you’re able to complete these few safety precautions, your liability will be reduced drastically.

Insurance for your church van and/or bus is a necessity! Keep your vehicle and passengers safe with the right amount of coverage, but also by adhering by the safety tips. Then you can have peace of mind that each trip your church makes will be one made in safety. If you have questions or would like a free quote, click below:

In the very litigious world we live in today, not even churches are exempt from lawsuits. In fact, some of the biggest and most controversial lawsuits we see are those that involve the clergy of the church!Protection from lawsuits filed for accidents and injuries that could involve you, your church staff or volunteers require more than just general liability insurance. Professional liability insurance will cover you when you face the costs of claims and the legal fees in the event that you or your organization is sued.

Could It Happen To Me?

You may be wondering how relevant this type of coverage is to your church, but the fact of the matter is, churches get sued more than you would like to think. There are several specific aspects liability insurance can cover your religious organization for:

• Pastoral Liability- this type of insurance will create coverage from damages that may rise from pastoral counseling such as (but not limited to) sexual misconduct, invasion of privacy and defamation.
• Counselor’s Liability- this provides coverage for neglect or omissions that may occur due to vocational counseling, educational or even learning disability therapy.
• Abusive Acts Liability- this provides coverage for anyone (staff, volunteers) who are acting on behalf of your church or religious organization that may be accused of actual or threatened abuse.

Every church and religious organization has specific needs when it comes to professional liability insurance coverage, and general liability does not cover you in these instances. Depending on the services your institution proves, your coverage will vary.

Southern States can help you create a uniquely tailored policy for you. For more information or a free quote, click below

In a fast paced world, email, texts and instant messages make it easy to communicate with clients, especially for salespeople on the go. But if you don’t put that extra touch into your client relationships, you’ll lose them, buckaroo.

So how can you differentiate yourself from your competition in a digital world?

Here are some easy social media tricks for building better rapport with your clients.

1. Recommend And Endorse Them On LinkedIn

In real life, if you like the work someone does, you refer them to people you know, right? So why not do the same using social media?

LinkedIn is built perfectly for you to sing your clients praises. Recommending and endorsing someone takes only a few minutes of your time, but will last for as long as their profile exists!

Recommending: In just a few short steps, you can write a concise, but meaningful recommendation about your client espousing all the great and wonderful things they’ve done for you and for others. This is a fantastic way to inflate their ego (I mean give them kudos).

Endorsing: This option allows you to affirm the skills of a LinkedIn connection with the click of a button. If someone thinks, for instance, that I am good at Sales Management, all they have to do is click the + button next to that skill on my profile and (Bam!), they’ve just endorsed me. And yes, your client will get an email listing all the skills for which you just endorsed them. Pretty snazzy, huh?

2. Advertise Their Charitable Causes

Notice I didn’t say “donate money to” your clients’ charitable causes. You can certainly do that if you want. But I bet you’d go broke supporting every client’s cause.

Instead, support them by sharing what they’re doing to give back to your community through social media. Facebook and Google Plus are particularly well suited for this kind of sharing because they make it so easy for others to continue sharing their story.

Before social media, you might not have found out about your client’s charity work until you read about it in the local paper. Today, you can not only learn what they’re doing in real time, but you’ll probably hear about what they’re planning weeks beforehand.

3. Host A Webinar For Them

If you really want to seal the deal on your next client renewal, shower them with potential customers. Lots of them!

Follow these simple steps to host your first webinar:

1. Choose Your Client(s) & Your Topic: Select one or more of your customers for whom you could build a central topic around. For example, a month before tax time, invite a CPA, a financial advisor and a commercial mortgage broker to discuss “Strategies For Reducing Your Business Tax Liabilities”.
2. Schedule It: Create either a GoToMeeting session or a Google Hangout that will be hosted at least 2 weeks in the future. This will give you time to build your audience. The webinar should be scheduled to last one hour, and lunchtime or just after is usually a good time to host it.
3. Build Your Audience: Based on your topic, start inviting everyone you can think of who would be interested. Target your existing customers, your LinkedIn contacts, Chamber of Commerce buddies, anyone who would benefit from your webinar. Make sure to use all of your social media outlets to get the word out.
4. Prepare & Practice: Develop 5 – 10 questions or topics to cover and send these to your panelists. You probably won’t have time to cover more than about 5 questions in an hour if you have multiple panelists, but it’s better to have more than you need just in case. Then, do a test run maybe a week or two ahead of time with some colleagues. This will allow you to work out technical difficulties and practice using all of the webinar tools available to you.
5. Host The Webinar: Be sure to have your panelists on standby a few minutes ahead of time and be ready to go. And don’t forget to record the show so you can share a link to the recorded version for those who weren’t able to make it. Plus, that recording can live on your website as free advertising for your clients for years to come!

4. Offer Coupons For Their Business

This works great with clients in the retail and service industries. It’s simple.

Ask your client if they’d like to advertise their product or service through a coupon in your agency’s next email newsletter. (You have one, right?) No fee, no hidden agenda. Tell them it’s a (new) service you offer to your valued clients. You want to help their business succeed, right?

We did this for one of our restaurant clients and the response was overwhelming. They got a ton of new patrons as a result, and that made our client happy. Best of all, they were happy with us.

If you don’t send out at least a quarterly(ish) email update to your clients, hang your head in shame right now. Ok, until then, you can always offer a coupon on your website. It’s still a gesture of goodwill. It just may not get as many eyes on it.

5. Interview Them

Part of human nature is that we love recognition. We love to have our story heard. So what better way to make a deposit into your client’s emotional bank account than by helping them get their own story broadcast to the masses?

With just an iPhone and a YouTube account, you can interview your client about any topic related to their business and then post it online for the world to see.

Some questions you might want to ask them:

• What inspired you to start this business?
• What value do your clients get from your product or service?
• What challenges have you faced in your company over the years, and how have you overcome those challenges?
• Tell me about a memorable client experience.

You could go on an on, and believe me, your client will keep talking. Give it a shot. And don’t forget to post the YouTube link to your social media outlets for sharing!

Conclusion

I know the temptation is to use email, texts and instant messages to communicate these days. But when it comes to clients, the agents who win are the ones who take the time to develop better rapport with them. Using these social media tools will allow you to be both brief and meaningful in your relationship building. A win-win in my book!

What ways have you used social media to build better customer rapport? Which ones have made the most impact on your clients?

Sounds very Rise of The Machines, doesn’t it? Well, in a way, it is…technologically speaking. But in other ways, the agent of the future will remain the same…just much cooler looking.

Here’s what I think the independent insurance agent of the future will look like. And why.

Where Will They Work?

The increasing us of cloud-based insurance tools means the agent of the future doesn’t have to come into the office every day.

Wait, haven’t I heard of this before? Oh yeah, remote worker programs. But that’s not for the insurance industry…or so you say.

Here’s why I think agents will work more remotely in the future:

• Agency Owners Buy-In: As they warm up to the idea of remote workers, owners will love the overhead cost savings. Less office rent, reduced furniture costs, fewer Keurig K-Cups (yes, our staff is addicted).

“But how do I manage my salesforce remotely?”

Don’t panic. If your producers are in the field with iPads and the like, that means you can Skype them anytime you need some Facetime (See what I did there?).

If it makes you feel better, schedule a regular video chat with them at the beginning of the week. Let this be your time to find out what’s on tap for them in the coming days. Although they might not say it, producers will appreciate both the accountability and the freedom that comes with this setup.

We’re already using Skype to keep in touch with some of our more remote offices. It’s free. And quite candidly, the slight awkwardness that’s unavoidable about being on camera encourages both parties get their points out and move on with their day. No more death by meeting. It’s a win-win!

• Agents Buy-In: Working from your house (or Starbucks) is what you’ve dreamed of, right? Okay, you won’t get to lurk in your CSR’s doorway whenever you want, but come on! You’re a salesperson. Get out there and do what you do best.

Seriously though, have you ever noticed how much more productive you can be when you step out of your cubicle and change your scenery?

Yes, it takes discipline to schedule time for paperwork before you go hunting for new clients. But, with coaching and encouragement from your sales manager, you’ll do just fine.

Where Will They Live?

Ever seen the movie Outsourced? It’s a must-rent B flick that will leave you in stitches (That’s old people speak for “funny”). Essentially, a mid-level manager in the U.S. gets sent to India to train his replacement. What ensues is pure comedy (and a little romance).

What I love about this movie is the bond that begins to form between the outsourced employees in India and their American customers, all through phone conversations. Here’s a short clip.

Now, I’m not suggesting that agencies of the future will outsource their producers to India. But I think it will certainly become more commonplace to find agents living in one state with a local insurance license who work for an agency in another state.

Or, if not another state, then at least 100 miles away from their agency’s nearest office (which, if you live in RI, would be another state).

How Will They Prospect And Sell?

If you haven’t already felt the effects of social media as an agent, step into the light. It’s here to stay.

Even if Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn go the way of the dodo in the next few years, there will be new outlets to replace them. Now that humans have figured out how to stay in touch in real time over the Internet, that basic ability won’t vanish anytime soon.

• Prospecting: Insurance agents of the future will do a majority of their prospecting (at least the initial legwork) through social media. Right now, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook all make this way too easy. But right now, agencies are dipping their toes in the water, and agents themselves still have a lot to learn about using these tools in their everyday prospecting bag of tricks.
• Mobile Quoting and Application Submission: In the (not too distant) future, agents will sit across the table from prospects they found through social media. They’ll crank out an insurance quote on their iPad in a matter of minutes. If the prospect likes what he sees, he can sign the ACORD applications with his finger, and the agent can bind the policy on the spot. All before their second latte.

This IS the way it’s headed, folks. Companies like Applied Systems have already made part of this scenario possible through their Mobile Producer app for the iPad.

Conclusion

The insurance agent of the future might not wear skin tight leather pants and ride a laser powered motorcycle (looking at you, Los Angeles). But they will certainly posses the high tech tools toys and geographic flexibility to perform their job with more efficiency than today.

What do you think the insurance agent of the future will look like?