A Serious Commitment

A Humble Start
His early days at the family agency were anything but glamorous. “My first exposure to the business was to clean up past due account balances—back then we were not as stringent with collections as we have to be now,” Daniel says. “I got on the phone and started working with the accounts [on their payments] and I started to talk with them about their insurance programs along the way.”

Daniel accompanied his father on client visits and slowly learned the ropes. While working with his dad, Daniel said he learned the importance of building strong relationships with customers and companies. “In my dad’s generation, relationships were extremely important in business, and I think they still are,” he says. “Today, a lot of people may not have that vision [because] life now is too quick, too hectic. But they miss a valuable piece of life and the business.”

While Daniel started out as a general agent, and still does write a cross-section of Main Street-style businesses, overtime, he has focused on the public entity niche. When his father passed away 10 years ago, he left the agency his father started and formed an agency with a new partner, Eustis Insurance and Benefits in New Orleans. He now operates Daniel &Eustis in Baton Rouge, La., and combined with Eustis, the agency is the largest privately-owned independent agency in the state. The partnership has made him appreciate the value of agencies at both ends of the size spectrum. “I have a relatively small operation in Baton Rouge, but I’ve partnered with much larger entity,” he says. “I’m enjoying the wonderful parts of being a small, family-style agency, but see the benefits of being a part of much larger agency that has so much expertise in technology, customer service and marketing.”

For agencies large or small, Daniel sees the common challenge of perpetuation and recruiting a talented workforce to replace the aging baby boomers. “We all are going to retire at some point, but to receive the fruits of our labor when we retire we need to bring on younger personnel who can ultimately replace us,” he says.

His advice for the next generation of producers and principals? Patience is a virtue. “The insurance business is sometimes a slow process…it is not an industry where you see instant success—it takes time,” he says. “But if you are patient, you will be greatly rewarded. There is a huge opportunity for young people coming into this business.”

Big “I” Born and Bred
When it comes to association involvement, Daniel says it came naturally.

Daniel’s father represented Louisiana on the Big “I” National Board of Directors for 20 years, and Daniel says he grew up with the Big “I” around him. “My father was heavily involved in the state and national associations, so I feel like I came to my involvement naturally through him,” he says. “I have the Big ‘I’ in my blood.”

When Daniel was starting out as a young agent, he immediately connected with other young producers through the Louisiana Young Agents program. He says it gave him instant access to a lot of people in the industry—both in the agent and company ranks—that he might not have known otherwise. “It was a great education for me to see how other agents were operating and get involved in the issues of the day,” he says.

Daniel initially became involved as a volunteer leader at the local level in the Independent Insurance Agents of Baton Rouge, ultimately serving as its president in 1989. Daniel then served on the board of directors of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of Louisiana (IIABL) for eight years and became president in 1997.He has acted as the state association’s representative to the Louisiana Insurance Rating Commission. For his commitment to the state association, Daniel has received IIABL’s Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the Outstanding Committee Chairman Award. On the national level, Daniel was elected to the executive committee by the Big “I” National Board of Directors in 2004, and has served as Louisiana’s Big “I” national board director since 1998. Daniel has also served on the Big “I” Technical Affairs Committee and was chairman of the Governance and Communication Task Force.

Daniel says his involvement with the association has enriched his professional life by educating him on all of the topics that cross an agent’s desk, whether it’s a regulatory, legislative or policy form issue. He strongly encourages members to get involved in local associations and Young Agents committees. “Connect with your counterparts and establish relationships in your industry—it is so valuable,” he says.

On the Radar
Trusted Choice^® and technology: those are the issues that Daniel says dominate his perspective as he looks to his year as chairman.

His first priority is to take Trusted Choice^® to greater levels and “have it become the brand that our members need it to be.” “Every independent agent is proud of their own agency brand in communities, but Trusted Choice^® can strengthen that agency brand by informing consumers that independent agents are trusted insurance advisors that deliver best value with a choice of markets. The brand can be so critical in driving consumers to independent agency system.”

In conjunction with building the brand, Daniel sees addressing the growing influence of technology in consumer buying habits as a top priority. Daniel recalls, with a chuckle, the first time his agency felt the tug of technology playing a role in customer interaction. The agency didn’t immediately purchase a fax machine when they became popular in the mid-80s. “I thought if we ever really needed to send a fax we could run to the copy store down the street,” he says. “But I was proven wrong very quickly—and learned a valuable lesson about how important technology would be in our business.”

Now, Daniel says he sees the growing trend of consumers wanting to purchase insurance online and viewing the product as a commodity. Daniel says the association is currently exploring establishing itself as player in the online arena by directing consumers who research insurance on the Internet to independent agents and brokers. “If we can accomplish what we would like to do, we would like to bring the customer through the door through the Internet, but then have it be up to the individual agent to serve the customer with the expertise agents have,” he says. “It’s a challenge because if we don’t do something, we’ll lose an increasing amount of business because of the Internet.”

On the government affairs front, Daniel says the Big “I” will continue to be front and center on the issues most important to agents: health care reform, regulatory reform, flood insurance, natural disasters, agent compensation, crop insurance and natural disasters. “We have a level of representation on the hill that is second to none,” he says. “Our staff is incredibly competent and well respected on Capitol Hill. And we will continue to be heavily involved and have our point of view heard as health care reform and financial regulatory reform press ahead.”

As he begins his term as Big “I” chairman, Daniel says he will rely on his philosophy as a consensus builder and get as many people involved in the decision making process as possible. As part of that effort, Daniel says he welcomes the opportunity to visit states as an officer of the association. “It’s an education to me each time I go to see what challenges and opportunities there are in each state,” he says. “I consider myself a liaison between the members and the national association, and it’s valuable for me to keep in touch with the state associations so that we can ultimately better serve our members.”

Butler (katie.butler@iiaba.net) is editor in chief of IA.


Realities of a Post-Katrina World

David Daniel knows first-hand the role independent agents play in helping communities recover from natural disasters—and he wants to ensure his customers will continue to have access to the coverage they need. “Most of the U.S. population lives in some sort of disaster-prone area, and we need to be smart enough to find a way to insure the people in the places where they want to live,” he says. “We need to encourage Congress to come up with solutions which would encourage insurance companies to write business in disaster-prone areas.” After a storm like Katrina, he says, insurance companies tend to leave the state and it’s difficult for each state to solve the related problems.

Daniel notes that the agent-client relationship after a disaster tends to be very personal as independent agents are claimants right alongside their customers.“We identify with each other—that’s when the customers need us the most and we have to be there for them,” he says. “When we sell an insurance policy we’re selling peace of mind and selling ourselves. You can’t get that piece of mind from a computer—that’s why independent agents will always be valuable in the insurance distribution system.”

—K.B.


Louisiana Through and Through

David Daniel has lived and worked in Baton Rouge, La., his entire life—and his pride in the area runs deep. His wife, Janet, an economics professor, is also from Baton Rouge, and the two went to high school and Louisiana State University together. He classifies himself as “an LSU sports fanatic” and says he has enjoyed the school’s recent national championships. His son, John, is currently attending LSU, while his daughter, Mary Rose, just finished graduate school at New York University. In his spare time, Daniel enjoys Louisiana’s geography as an avid duck hunter. He says he used to be a good golfer, but determined “now I don’t have the time to be a good golfer.”

—K.B.