Page 8 - COVID-Proof-Your-Agency

Chapter 1 – Introduction and Background | Blew, Caldwell, Masiello

We have also provided a number of ideas, along with questions to ask yourself, about

how the future, post COVID-19, may look and the opportunities and the threats that it will

present to the independent agency owner, along with potential changes to the insurance industry

as a whole. For example, it is clear that communications have changed fundamentally and are

unlikely to ever go back to the way they were in February of 2020. What implications are there

for the future for marketing? For client service? For commissions? For direct sales and digital

sales of products? For the use of digital assets? Will there be changes in insurance company

contracts? Will there be changes in carrier appointment criteria? How will service center use

evolve? Will they become even a more prevalent feature of small business and personal

insurance service? These and many questions demand serious reflection and thinking in order to

prepare your agency for a future which will certainly be different than even the recent past.

You may be wondering who are the authors of this book? Why should they be listened to

by me? What is their experience? Where does their thinking come?

All three authors are insurance agency developers with individual experience spanning

decades, both in the retail insurance agency business as well as in the business of helping

insurance agents plan and grow their agencies. We are all involved in the largest development

organization of independent insurance agencies in the United States, SIAA, Inc. (Strategic

Insurance Agents Alliance). Matt Masiello is the CEO of SIAA. Tony Caldwell is the CEO of

One Agents Alliance a large strategic Master Agency member of SIAA with 183 insurance

agency members. Eric Blew is the President of Pennsylvania Insurance Alliance, a large network

of independent insurance agencies in the eastern part of Pennsylvania. Our national organization

is comprised of 13% of the independent agency force in the United States and collectively the

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