Articles by Kevin B. O'Reilly

New Missouri Commissioner Brings Agent Experience to the Job

How W. Dale Finke Was Selected a Matter of Controversy Dale Finke doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. When Missouri’s Republican Gov. Matt Blunt nominated Finke to be the state’s insurance director back in February, some objected to …

Closing Time

The Insurance Journal directory issues are known as “keepers,” because both empirical and anecdotal evidence tells us that readers are likely to hang on to them longer for easy access. In this case, you’re getting one monster of a keeper, …

Producer Development: Learning to Sell

New Program Teaches a Consultative Approach to Insurance Sales Beginning this week, 15 insurance agents are returning to Normal, Ill., to do an unusual thing in the world of insurance training: talk with each other about what’s worked and what …

Producer Development: Learning to Sell

New Program Teaches a Consultative Approach to Insurance Sales Beginning this week, 15 insurance agents are returning to Normal, Ill., to do an unusual thing in the world of insurance training: talk with each other about what’s worked and what …

Mmmm … Insurance

In its 16 seasons on the air, Fox TV’s The Simpsons has skewered every aspect of American life, from family to government, business to politics. Many Springfield professionals of questionable repute have been represented as recurring characters on the show. …

Wis. Assembly Passes Bill to Pin Insurers With $500 Million Fox River Cleanup Tab

A coalition of carriers that insured Wisconsin’s paper manufacturers thought they had successfully defeated a legislative effort to force them to pick up the estimated $500 million tab to clean up the polluted Fox River. The insurers, along with several …

Rearview Mirror

There are no second acts in American life,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously noted. True, he never wrote another novel as wonderful as The Great Gatsby, but generally speaking he was wrong. Second, third and fourth chances are what make this …

Insurers Dodge $500 Million Fox River Cleanup Tab–For Now

A coalition of carriers that insured Wisconsin’s paper manufacturers have, for now, successfully defeated a legislative effort that would have forced them to pick up the estimated $500 million tab to clean up the polluted Fox River. The insurers, along …

Viruses, Worms and Hackers, Oh My!

For Agents Facing Evil Internet Wizards, Security is a Matter of Liability as Well as Downtime In 2001, Boston-area independent agent Peter Anderson noticed that his agency’s network server was dramatically losing hard disk space. The last time he’d checked …

Coins of the Realm

You’ve probably heard by now about what happened in Ohio. The administrator of the state’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, Robert Conrad, has resigned amid a scandal over hundreds of missing coins. But these aren’t the kind you can locate by …