Thanks to those who took the time to complete our Survey forms. We had 25 Commercial and 41 Personal lines responses. Thankfully there were only a few items that had negative responses and, overall, the praises for our speedy service and the helpful attitude of our staff were by far the majority.

Some requests or suggestions for improvement of our procedures were helpful and are receiving attention over the next few weeks.

Some requests were, regrettably, not feasible. These were along the lines of "why do we have to do this". In most cases they were things that, over the years, have proven necessary to protect both your agency and ourselves from potential E&O suits arising out of incorrect or non-existent information that cause claims to be denied.

Below I have posted comments from the survey and my responses. The survey was, of course, anonymous, so unless you included a business card or the agency name, I don't know who to respond to on any outstanding items.

For what its worth, my analysis of the survey gives us a solid "A" for service and probably an "A-" for ease of conducting business. If you are interested in a bit more details or recognize your own comments among those listed, feel free to email jhandel@jhassoc.com or call me and I'll be more than happy to explain further.

Meanwhile, thanks again for your help.

John K. Handel
John Handel & Associates, Inc.

Personal Lines 2005 Agent Survey

First thing, thanks to all of you who took the time to complete a survey and returning it to me. We contacted 100 Agencies and received a response from 66 of them.

On both personal Lines and commercial lines coverage's we received only positive comments regarding our service and turnaround on quotations, policy/endorsement issuance, underwriter's relationships and available products.

So what do we need to improve? Here is a summary of comments from both segments of the survey, along with comment from me on the possibilities of granting your wishes!

Personal Lines:

1. Be able to offer liability limits increase for swimming pool liability.

Answer:

We can certainly look at this. The existing carriers may not agree to an increase but we are exploring other carriers to see if someone would write an excess layer. The success of this will probably depend on what you think is an adequate limit and how much an Insured would pay to purchase the limit. Those of you that raised the questions should call me or speak to your underwriter to give me an idea of how much of a problem it is. Most existing sub-limits are $10,000. So would say, $300,000 suffice for an additional premium of $250??

2. Please assign us a specific underwriter.

Answer:

No major objection to this except that we have previously tried to use assigned underwriters on an alphabet agent basis and service suffered the moment someone was sick or left the Company. We only have 6 personal lines underwriters and you are free to submit to any of them. If you develop a special relationship with someone particular, that's fine with me.

3. "Some other Wholesalers" don't require a renewal application every year.

Answer:

This has come up before and I'm confused that a retail agent wouldn't want an excuse to contact their Insured to discuss a renewal. I can only surmise that "some other Wholesalers" don't do any underwriting of an account but merely want to process a renewal order. There are lots of things that can happen in the course of a year. Did the Insured put in a pool, add an addition to the home, get a dog, or have any other changes in exposure? A fresh application will probably reveal the change, give you a chance to sell more coverage and certainly protect your agency from an errors and omissions claim when the Company denies a claim for "non-disclosure", and the Insured's attorney thinks it is your fault. You don't have to have an application before getting a renewal quote but not getting one at all is confusing and dangerous. Can someone explain?

4. Any market for mobile homes?

Answer:

Sorry, we don't often just say "No" but our info shows that the pricing needed to cover mobile homes is too high to sell. A survey of 2004 claims indicates that even at a rate of 25% on value, a Company would still have lost millions on a mobile home program.

5. Amend our "on-line" applications to allow entry for all classes and coverage's.

Answer:

We are looking at this suggestion very seriously. At the moment I can't see any reason why we couldn't do this, so watch out for future developments. If you want something specific, let me know.

6. Could we consider "Direct Bill" premiums?

Answer:

This is really an admitted Company procedure, which is not suited to the E&S Markets. Our problem is that it would compromise the already tight payment terms that are required by our various carriers. Maybe I don't understand "Direct Bill" completely. What are the real advantages?

7. Can we do Jewelry/Fine Arts Floaters?

Answer:

Certainly, we already have 3 or 4 carriers that will write stand alone schedules or smaller schedules that can be added to HO3 policies. Just ask!

8. Can we have computer applications for all coverage's?

Answer:

Our computer discs only deal with certain products. However, our website is much more comprehensive and hopefully will provide what you need. If it doesn't…let me know.

9. We have problems with older homes, LLC, Trusts, Corporate Names.

Answer:

We can do all of these for you as long as you explain the account and it meets other underwriting minimum requirements. i.e. not less than $250,000, value, recent (5Yrs) updates etc… and no "commercial" operations.

Well that was about all the Personal lines side. My overall judgment would be that JHA should qualify for an A-. Thanks again for your help and if you disagree with any of my comments please let me know! For 2005 I will try to make as many adjustments as possible to serve you better.

Commercial Lines 2005 Agent Survey

On the Commercial Lines survey there were two comments that were repeated several times. (1) We didn't know you did Commercial Property and General Liability and (2) We love the service but your rates are high.

For the first item…….yes, indeed, a sizable part of our total volume is Commercial business. We obviously have not done a good job in spreading the word. To correct this, hopefully, we are initiating some plans to make contact on a more personal basis. This will include some Agency visits, several "seminar" type events that will also give Agents a chance to earn continuing education credits and of course our new website which includes much more detail on what we do and where we can help you.

For the second item, all I can say is "we hear you, and we are listening". We have several new facilities that will be more competitive for both Property and GL. We rely on you the Agent to let us know where we stand in the marketplace. Let us know what the competition is and we will try to match or beat it if we possibly can. I am advising all Underwriters that we have to become more aggressive. They will negotiate with you, so let them know where we need to be. I will be re-visiting this subject in 3 months to see if we are doing better.