Page 141 - The UnCaptive Agent

114 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

You should have a template, and you should estab-
lish from the beginning the standardized use of this
template. This will reinforce your agency brand identifi-
cation and will also assist in protecting you from E&O
exposure. The proposal template will also establish in
the minds of your prospects that you are a professional,
established business.
Even if you only have one employee, you will still
need a certain set of Human Resources policies and
procedures and a provision for doing payroll correctly.

Human Resources Considerations

The first consideration in your HR policies is keeping
yourself legal. Many startups are tempted to hire every-
one who works for them as independent contractors.
This is a serious mistake. State workers’ compensa-
tion laws are very strict about who can be considered
an independent contractor. The federal government’s
Wage and Hour bureaucrats have an even longer list
of requirements. When you consider the requirements
of state and local governments, it is simply impossible
for anyone who works in an insurance agency to be an
independent contractor. Even though you would like,
potentially, to avoid state unemployment and federal
unemployment taxes, you can’t avoid workers’ compen-
sation premiums and social security taxes.
Because you will have employees, beginning with
yourself, you should establish an employee manual that
specifies the hours of work, your vacation and holiday
pay, and all of the other considerations of employment.
A sample manual can be easily found on the Internet,
or you can ask your attorney to provide one for you. If
you purchase a manual via an Internet vendor, I strongly
recommend that you have your attorney review it. It’s