Insurance Journal Forums

It has not worked out to my expectations; does anyone have any advice when leaving NIA?

Can you take your book of biz with you?

Do you have to pay an exit fee penalty? Those are some questions you should ask before you leave.

I can take my book with me and there are no exit penalties. There is a clause about paying 3% for 3 years to NIA for gaining a direct appointment and rolling business to the appointment. I just don’t understand how they can administer this. It seems like I can’t even place insurance business in seamless professional manner with them.

I, too, have been thinking about terminating NIA. I am meeting with the Rep on Thursday to discuss the provisions if I leave. I have been told that they will cut commissions in half on the book that runs out with them. Not sure if the savings from not paying monthly dues will offset the reduction in commissions. I'll have to crunch the numbers once I get a confirmation from the Rep as to the commission %.
I have been with them for 10+ years, and the bigger they get, the worse they get. It used to be a fantastic cluster, but as they grew, service has deteriated.

I recently terminated my agreement with NIA and it was easy. Dealing with them was the most difficult part of the transaction. When it became harder to write a new piece of business than sell it to the client, I decided that paying them my hard earned money every month was not a smart move.

We are in the same boat over here. I have been working with NIA for about 15 years. I have seen them go from great to horrible to great, and now to frustratingly bad.

They have access to some great carriers, but it is at the point now where I don't even want to call to speak with the reps that we are assigned to to discuss new biz opportunities due to late or non-existent responses. It seems that we are lucky to get a call back if we do not leave at least two messages, and half of the time we do not know who to speak to about a particular line of business as they keep moving our team around.

We are going to stick it out for a bit longer to see if they can get it together, but our patience is running thin.

I terminated my contract with them. They have a deal where you have to pay them 3% for 3 years if you BOR your business. I gave them a list of policies that I wanted to BOR and called them a number of times and they never got back to me. If you roll the business from one carrier to another they don't get their 3% and that is what I did. If you terminate they will just pay you a lower commission and you can't submit new business.

OK, I give up ... what is the mysterious entity known as "NIA" ... National Institutes of Art? National Insurance Alliance? Help me out here, people.
-- Doug

Networked Insurance Agents http://networkedins.com/

I used them once in past...and did not have a fun experience with them. Concept is good...it is the execution that is not good.

Wonder if some of that is related to location - Grass Valley CA - is not a huge population center. So must be tougher to find people (let alone good ones) which then impowers the longer tenured persons with not so wonderful attitudes.

Thank you for your candid comments about Networked. Just like other companies, we can always do better. Everyone’s clients are demanding more for less – it’s a challenge. I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you individually and welcome your remarks.

If you have any comments, please contact me, Jim Simmons VP of Sales at (530) 274-6979 or jim.simmons@networkedins.com