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194 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

designed to help agency entrepreneurs create a solid,
stable foundation for their new agencies.
AGC. Agency Growth Coach™: (Also known as
Agency Development Field Specialists™ employed by
SIAA strategic master agencies on behalf of their agency
members). Are insurance agency development experts
who provide mentoring and coaching to insurance agent
principals of OAA and SIAA. They are also resource
experts and are highly skilled at helping agents smooth
the path to development in their agencies.
Aggregator: An organization that facilitates the
sharing of insurance company contracts among more
than one insurance agency in order to make access to
writing insurance with that company possible for agen-
cies with insufficient volume to allow them to contract
independently. Sometimes, the profit sharing created
by this arrangement is divided among the aggregated
agents. Aggregation arrangements force insurance car-
riers into doing business with agents they might not
normally be willing to appoint and creates additional
insurance company marketing representative overhead
and potentially higher agent compensation costs, raising
insurance carrier expenses.
AR: Augmented Reality is a form of virtual reality
that combines the physical and electronic worlds into
one unique setting. AR will expand agent opportunities
for selling and services clients face-to-face, in real time,
and across geographical boundaries before the end of
the 2020s.
BIA: Business Insurance Advantage. A program
offered by SIAA to its member agencies is a training and
development program designed to assist member agents
with personal lines sales experience develop similar capa-
bilities in small commercial insurance. SIAA statistics
show that BIA™ graduates produce approximately two