Filtering the Truth

Spring is a perfect time to reflect. Cleaning out your house helps to get rid of the old while also looking to the future. We do the same thing in our professional lives. As independent insurance agents, we wonder what our Big “I” membership will look like and what we will need from the association in order to be successful going forward.

Recently, a group of agents and state execs from around the country sat down to start the process. We talked about innovative products and services, and how delivering them will be critical in the future. We talked about big members and small members: members who use all of our services and members who don’t participate in anything or take advantage of Big “I” products and services—but still pay their dues! The first group of agent concerns are easy to deal with. The latter group provides a bit more of a challenge.

Why do people belong? Mostly, I think it’s because groups help define who we are. A sense of belonging aids in identity. We belong for the knowledge that we are not out there by ourselves—that there are more people who think and act just like us. Groups help by providing support, safety, comfort and trust. As humans, we crave that comfort and feeling of companionship, and the knowledge that someone is looking out for us. That is really what our association provides. The uncertainty of being out there on our own as independent agents is scary, but knowing that others are there, looking for ways to protect us on a daily basis from bad things coming our way is something we may take for granted.

Last week I bought the new iPad, and because I was hurrying to head out of town, tried to configure it myself. I’m still not sure what button I hit or didn’t hit, but my firewall became compromised and started sending a great deal of spam to my inbox. Suffice it to say, after receiving more than 600 messages in a 48-hour period, I could be an expert on any kind of enlargement! Try to explain that one to your wife!

This experience got me thinking about the importance of information filters and what an important function filters play in our lives.

Over the past 100 years, IIABA has acted as our filter. Our association has protected us against all kinds of threats and helped maintain what we know is important. This includes things we may take for granted in our day-to-day lives, like:

• Our fight over the ownership of our expirations—the cornerstone of why we exist;
• The passage of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which ensures we are regulated at a level closest to us and includes a limited anti-trust exemption that allows us to standardized policy forms;
• Our fight with the banks concerning the use of credit tie-ins and comingling of banking and insurance
• services;
• Our work with crop and flood insurance to help protect our customers;
• The work that helped enact reform of our agent licensing by streamlining nonresident licensing;
• The review of just about every agent and company contract, protecting us from making costly bad decisions;
• Help with perpetuation issues in our agencies;
• Cobranding our agencies and advertising;
• Help increasing production efficiency through standardizing forms;
• Help with ever-changing agency operation procedures; and
• Education including the Virtual University, Ask an Expert and Best Practices services.

Over the past 100 years, our association has been there for us, looking over our shoulder, quietly and gently providing the informational filter that keeps us safe and secure by only letting through the things that are good for us as members. That is the association’s value. That is why we belong.

—Michael Donohoe, Big “I” Chairman