Page 56 - The UnCaptive Agent

WHAT KIND OF AGENCY DO YOU WANT TO START? 29

courses are delivered online through webinars as well
as in person and are good resources for developing
commercial lines sales skills. These courses require an
agency appointment and usually cost several thousand
dollars (though some carriers will reduce the invest-
ment if the agency produces a certain amount of new
business). The Institute for Risk Management (IRMI)
is another source of insurance education.
One of the best programs for small commercial
insurance producer sales training focused on learning
to market and sell commercial lines effectively was
developed by SIAA and is called Business Insurance
Advantage™ (BIA). This program is focused on helping
personal insurance agents learn to sell small commercial
quickly. The program is a combination of webinars and
weekly, personalized mentoring and coaching. SIAA’s
BIA™ program has proven highly effective with grad-
uates, producing two hundred fifty percent more new
business per year than agents who have not had the
training. This program is free to SIAA members (all
agencies affiliated with my company OAA are also
members of SIAA).
At OAA, we have found that even the highly expe-
rienced personal lines insurance agent benefits from
coaching and mentoring over the first couple of years
of work in commercial lines. That is why we created a
Business Insurance Advantage Alumni™ program to
further graduates’ skill and knowledge. We have seen
significant results compared to those not in a program
in terms of new business production, lower loss ratios,
increased profit sharing, and development of internal
agency capabilities to extend results with new producers.
Another requirement to effectively produce com-
mercial lines is depth of product knowledge. Insurance
companies offer many excellent online training modules