Latest Chris Burand Headlines
All the headlines from our Chris Burand Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Why Insurance Agencies Can’t Ignore Bad Accounting
Jun 6 2016 // Take an industry, say independent insurance agencies, that is supposed to be sales-focused and where principals think accounting is boring. Accounting may be boring but a business owner only ignores it at his or her own...
Who Moved Your Cheese? The End (for Now) of Market Cycles
May 2 2016 // The good news is that for the foreseeable future, with certain exceptions, you will not have to tell your clients their premiums are increasing 10 percent or more. Property/casualty carriers collectively, not necessarily...
Conflicts of Interest and Rebating
Apr 4 2016 // Time flies but history repeats. Enough time has passed that many people working in insurance today have no experience relative to the disruption, fear and frustration generated by the inquires of various state attorneys...
Finding Producers in Small Towns
Mar 7 2016 // How did agencies in small towns ever get started? Someone wanted to work on their own, in sales, and blaze their own future. People don’t usually get into insurance on purpose, and especially not into the insurance...
Brands & Independent Insurance Agencies
Feb 8 2016 // Much has been discussed and considerable investments have been made specific to branding within the independent insurance agency market over the past five to 10 years. Intense pressure to “brand” exists because...
Playing to Win Versus Playing to Not Lose
Jan 11 2016 // I received an interesting request from a reader regarding a prior article I wrote. That article was how many people, agencies, companies and associations are not playing to win. They are only playing to not lose. The...
Insurance Company Profitability
Dec 7 2015 // The past 10 years has been incredibly profitable for insurance companies. Net income for the industry – that is net, not pretax – has equaled $448 billion; that’s almost half a trillion dollars. It is not chump...
The Competitive Advantage: Agency Prices
Nov 13 2015 // Agency prices are likely at all-time highs, albeit only a handful of very specific buyers are paying such high prices. They are setting the mark making acquisitions unaffordable for many regular agencies that do not have...
Agency Prices Are Awfully High
Nov 2 2015 // Acquisition prices unaffordable for many agencies without Wall Street or private equity backing Agency prices are likely at all-time highs, albeit only a handful of very specific buyers are paying such high prices. They...
Public’s Perception of Insurance Is Reality – Accept Reality
Oct 5 2015 // Perception is reality. The general public’s perception of reality relative to insurance is that personal insurance, especially auto, is a commodity. Their perception ranges from it being a government conspiracy...
What to Know About Insurance Company Financial Status
Sep 7 2015 // I recently listened to an insurance company executive give a discombobulated, “woe is me” speech to a room of agents who were largely ignorant of carriers’ financial success. To summarize his...
Simple Solutions
Aug 3 2015 // Once upon a time a doctor on Main Street USA made the same diagnosis and prescribed the same solution for every patient. This was a long time before WebMD or even Marcus Welby, MD. Patients had to weigh their two options...
The Age of Big Data and Agencies – Not
Jul 6 2015 // This is the age of big data. The concept is to collect all kinds of data and then use various statistical techniques, usually some sophisticated form of regression analysis, to identify correlations between the data,...
The Market Cycle and Acquisitions
Jun 1 2015 // Every reader likely already knows interest rates are rock bottom. Some are even nominally negative and the prime rate has not changed in six years. That is a record! Exposure growth overall is normal, neither strong nor...
Movies and Agencies
May 4 2015 // Did you ever see the movie about the famous ballplayer that did not follow the playbook? How by doing whatever he wanted regardless of the play called, he succeeded and all his teammates were happy? What an inspiring story...
Sales & Sales Gurus
Apr 6 2015 // Every day I receive at least a half dozen emails from firms promising to increase my sales if I pay them thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars. I see website developers promising to increase my...
Insurance Language – Clear as Mud
Mar 9 2015 // On occasion I find myself in a position having to explain insurance language to non-insurance people, particularly attorneys and CPAs. Their responses range from vacant stares to confusion. For example, think about...
Valuing Agencies Using Multiples of EBITDA
Feb 9 2015 // Multiples of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) has been used for various business valuations, investment decisions, and loan arrangements for many generations so there is nothing new...
Insurance Policies – Too Clever by Half
Jan 12 2015 // I recently bought one of the new airline travel insurance policies. I’m on planes all the time visiting agencies and speaking across the country, so this new product appealed greatly to me. Many of my flights suffer...
Mad Hatters & Agency Owners
Dec 1 2014 // Obviously the title is a take-off from the classic Joe Cocker song/album, Mad Hatters & Englishmen, which is a take from Alice in Wonderland, which is a perspective on brains not working quite correctly. What happens...
