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Bad employee biggest pain. Absolutely no reason for this. Just Get rid of them.

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?
by Pathwayinsurance » Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:21 pm

Did anyone mention bad employees? Clock watcher CSR's, employes that steal time by caring for their personal business, versus caring for clients needs.
Jack Thomas - Agency Principal

While I agree with jtowninsurance that if the employee is a drain on resources/detrimental to business they should be shown the door, some allowances for personal business during the day should be allowable.

Many employees have business for their children, spouses, etc. that just happens to fall during standard business hours. It can't be helped.

Definitely the IT component. We're a small biz so that hat falls in our heads and none of us are networking or computer pros. An IT snafu can shut things down pretty quickly.

NCInsCo wrote:

Re: What is your biggest pain as an agent?
by Pathwayinsurance » Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:21 pm

Did anyone mention bad employees? Clock watcher CSR's, employes that steal time by caring for their personal business, versus caring for clients needs.
Jack Thomas - Agency Principal

While I agree with jtowninsurance that if the employee is a drain on resources/detrimental to business they should be shown the door, some allowances for personal business during the day should be allowable.

Many employees have business for their children, spouses, etc. that just happens to fall during standard business hours. It can't be helped.

Only thing to consider is that sometimes Employees will Take advantage of the situation...if any employee spends 30 minute each day Taking care of personal matters, How much Does that add up in a year assuming that the employee works five days per week and 50 weeks out of the year? That equals more than 2 weeks of lost productivity.

We do not allow it, if employees need to care for personal necessary things they clock out, and clock back in when finished...if you don't monitor you may find some Employees wasting 30 minutes of your time each day, That's real money out of your pocket As the agency owner.

Dealing with incompetence.
This can be anyone from a carrier CSR or billing rep to a lender or financial institution. There is incompetence everywhere and I deal with it on a daily basis. This is why I tell all of my clients to call me first regarding any issue they might have (claims, billing, etc.).
Clients sometimes ask silly questions. Re-marketing can be cumbersome. Binders can be a pain... however, I can deal with all of these just fine as long as I'm dealing with competent people.

Silly requests on COI's from people who think they know what they are doing. Examples:
Requiring a 2/4 GL limit, nothing else, when insured carries 1/2 and a 5mm umbrella
Requiring AI forms from decades ago when most carriers are no longer filed to use them

Dealing with any public entity who wants to be named as an AI on a GL policy
"successors, assigns, vendors, employees, managers, directors, etc"

1) Leads companies the sell bogus, incentivized ( win free ipad) or recycled leads.
2) Legit leads that never answer the phone or email

jtownagent wrote:1) Billing questions, non payment cancelations, reinstatement request of bad pay clients.
2) Binder requests from mortgage companies that continually sell mortgages
3) Company underwriting appetites or pricing that changes dramatically
4) Marketing reps that bring no value
5) Any one that does not respond to a phone call or e-mail request in a timely manner

So basically, lunch is awesome but other than that your job is a pain??

How about having to call customer service everyday to correct endorsements that weren't processed and errors with billing by carriers... Some MGA's and carriers are great, others are a complete mess and way over their heads with system and follow up problems.

Right now my biggest pain is customer service. Its hard to sell, market and service as a one man shop. It never seems like there is enough time in the day.

shiftins wrote:Right now my biggest pain is customer service. Its hard to sell, market and service as a one man shop. It never seems like there is enough time in the day.

The key to success in becoming more than a one man(or woman) agency is to invest in a staff person. We started a scratch agency in 1999 and the first person hired Was a telemarketer So that we could take away the marketing aspect of our job duties, the next person was a CSR.

Because of the investments that we made in hiring staff we now employee nine staff, we started with one and the staff helped us to build a nice size agency. Our story really isn't that unusual, Make investments in hiring staff and your agency will grow!

Jacobiv wrote:I'm curious to know what the biggest pains for an agent in their day to day work......

Great question, I would have to say IT issues with different carrier sites. Some carriers are IE 10 compatible and others IE 9 etc. I can spend literally hours with tech support over the phone trying to figure out whats wrong. Definitely one of my biggest pains as an insurance agent.

How would you like to be a Farmers agent and be tied to IE 9? Now along comes Windows automatic update and you come in the next morning...NOTHING WORKS!!! IE10 was automatically installed overnight to thousands of Farmers agents...ROFL.

Jacobiv wrote:I'm curious to know what the biggest pains for an agent in their day to day work......

Recently I would have to say my lower back, literally. As an agent I do a lot of sitting and i've been looking for ways to get out of my chair and walk around more often. Sometimes I get so caught up in what I'm working on I just forget!

Think about getting a stand up desk. Just google "stand up desk". There are many options.