Continuing Education Opinions Differ
It was a pleasure talking to insurance agency and insurance association representatives to discuss agent education for the education story on page 12. It was also interesting to hear the differing opinions about education.
While every insurance agency principal I talked to acknowledged continuing education is important, their main concern was that agents take CE courses required by the state. In the meantime they seemed to be ignoring CE for other agency personnel, like service representatives, who play a vital role in communicating with the customer. While agency principals agree education is important, many only gave employees training time if their license is about to expire.
Several professional associations cited statistics indicating that 98 percent of agencies pay for CE for their employees without griping–but as one association executive told me, in a lot of ways they act just like their customers–they want it good, they want it cheap and they want it right now.
If CE weren’t required, even the best agents would never get to go, because agency owners consider any activity that is not making them money a waste of time. Lets face it, agency principals are cheap–they want employees at their desks all day, every day and don’t consider it time well-spent if an employee is sitting in a classroom.
Another emerging trend seems to be that agencies want CE tailored specifically to their agency’s activities. In the near future, if associations want to maintain CE class attendance they are going to have to meet that requirement–not only that, but education is going to have to be available at the agency.
Agency training is an issue that associations are going to have to wrestle with going forward, especially as more agencies, like J. Smith Lanier & Co., a RiskProNet member in West Point, Ga., (see page 103) design their own training sessions.
This can be accomplished in several ways: the Big I University is a great step in that direction; online education in which seminars are put online and tailored in a state-specific manner will soon be common. Gray Marion, executive vice president of the Professional Indpendent Insurance Agents of West Virginia, comments on page 12, that he expects such seminars to be quite common within a year.
Insurance is an ever-changing field, all agency employees need to be constantly updated on rules and regulations and policy changes. Independent agencies are small, every employee plays an important role on the team and therefore education is essential for every player on that team. It is important to get those employees out of the office environment and into the classroom where they can be exposed to other ways of doing things, other lines of thought and where they can learn new techniques, all of which will pay off back in the office and in customer satisfaction and increased business.|
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