PIA Western Alliance Unites Agents Across Nine States
Four Professional Insurance Association (PIA) affiliate chapters recently united to form the PIA Western Alliance, a 1,500-member organization for independent agents based in Vancouver, Wash.
The four PIA chapters that make up the Western Alliance, which was formed on Oct. 1, include Washington/Alaska; Oregon/Idaho; Montana; and the Group–Arizona, California, New Mexico and Nevada.
“Each one of the state affiliates still maintains autonomy,” explained Clark Sitzes, executive director of PIA Western Alliance. “They are still the PIA of Oregon/Idaho, still the PIA of Washington/Alaska, still the Group, still PIA Montana. Each of them has their own board of directors, so they govern locally. We still have this autonomous rule by the individual organizations but we’ve created a new association to govern all four of them.”
Sitzes said that the Western Alliance was in planning stages for about 18 months. The idea originated in the summer of 2003 when PIA held a summit meeting with the executive committees of each of the board of directors from the four associations.
“We basically discussed in general what we had in common and there was a little bit that we didn’t have in common, so we decided to discuss what we could be doing as an organization collectively,” Sitzes said.
He said that PIA is different from other agent associations because the states have autonomy, rather than the national organization.
“It’s somewhat unusual,” he said. “We govern from the ground up. Other agent associations generally get their mandates or their structure and how they’re going to act from their national association. The PIA has always been more free relative to their affiliates charting their own course. The national does play a big role; they provide us with products and services that only a national association could do. But if the state affiliates want to get together like we did out here, national tries to encourage that.”
Rich Kingsley, president of PIA Oregon/Idaho, agreed with Sitzes.
“We actually are a from-the-bottom-up organization,” Kingsley said. “The local affiliates actually decide what they want to do. The other associations are top down states, who send the information down and say here’s the program, available from the top instead of from the local affiliates.”
Sitzes said that PIA associations are more independent and can provide a higher level of products and services to agents. He said PIA Western Alliance, as a cluster of four associations, offers unprecedented benefits to agents in the nine states, including education, purchasing power and access to markets.
“There will be more choices for us to have access to programs that we wouldn’t otherwise have access to,” Kingsley said. “That allows us to give our customer broader quotes so they can choose the one that they want.”
“We can go out and say, ‘We’re big and we’re going to give you lots of volume and in doing so we want something more for our members, a little bit higher commission,'” Sitzes added.
Sitzes said that one of the best benefits that Western Alliance offers agents is errors & omissions coverage, with access to four major E&O companies that normally would not be available on an individual state-by-state basis.
One of the goals of the PIA Western Alliance is to promote the independent agency system. It is in the process of organizing a grassroots public relations campaign for members to implement in their offices that will be available in June of 2005.
“The direct writers and the captive agents with their multi million dollar campaigns make it difficult to compete for business,” he said. “Our program is designed to help the agent educate the consumer relative to the benefits of using an independent agent and an independent company, with choice in pricing and coverage.”
Another goal for the newly-formed association is a stronger voice in government affairs.
“At some point the Western Alliance hopes to be influencing public policy at more than just the state level,” Sitzes said. “We’ve got a long way to go, but our long term goal is to influence the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in our nine states, have a dialogue with them. We’d like to work with our carrier friends to make the marketplace more competitive by allowing carriers to have flexibility relative to adjusting rates. But as a larger organization with a grassroots system, we can generate calls and letters from literally thousands of agents rather than hundreds.”
Kingsley said that PIA Western Alliance has already started making its voice heard.
“One of the things they’re already working on and we’ve had some hearings on is allowing agents to charge fees for services that the companies used to provide,” he said.
Sitzes anticipates that PIA Western Alliance overall will be a success.
“We’re growing and getting about 10-15 new members a week,” he said. “We should be able to grow quite comfortably for a long time. It’s been a terrific concept. The key is to continue to adjust our strategy as we grow.”