Magazine

By: Volume 116, No. 9

Since joining the independent agency channel at age 16, new Big ‘I’ Chairman Jon Jensen has seen it all. Now, he’s focused on perpetuating the industry.

Whether it’s organized as a sole proprietorship, a partnership, an LLC, an S-corp or a C-corp, or it uses multiple structures, understanding your agency’s legal structure could have important implications for the future of your business.

While large businesses may have the human and financial resources as well as risk transfer mechanisms to overcome a cybercrime event, small businesses are often targets precisely because they do not have these resources or security measures in place.

With just 2-3% of new customers entering the personal lines auto insurance market each year, direct companies and independent agents are best positioned to capture this portion of the market.

The key to a great sales career: building relationships, not broad net fishing.

Your ability to provide a life insurance solution adds significant value to your relationship with your clients, while also improving your client retention and adding revenue per account for your agency.

If you don’t approach non-industry executives strategically, they can quickly become expensive mistakes. Keep these strategies in mind to optimize the transition for these newcomers.

At its best, managing is about getting organizational results—and that requires setting boundaries.

When Patrick Dempsey attended his first Big “I” Legislative Conference on a whim back in 2009, he “didn’t know anything” about the importance of the annual event. “But the Massachusetts agents who were there were all very experienced,” he says. “They knew