What Will Your Line Be’

So there I was, spooning slightly wilted salad onto my plate when two insurance agents behind me began to catch up.

“So what have you been telling your insureds about why their premiums are going up,” the first says, laughing lightly because it’s a joke that everyone in the room will get.

“Well, I usually begin by asking them how much they went up,” says the other.

“And then what?”

“Well, when they tell me 20 percent or 25 percent, I act shocked and say “Is that all? I expected it to be much more.

And while it’s fun waxing comic about how to break it to the insureds, it’s a situation that is not always comfortable for the agent or whoever fields the phone call. Why are they going up? But I haven’t had any accidents! But I never get sick! These comments are often followed by requests to remarket a risk.

Old timers, and even some new timers, reminisce about the hard and soft cycles. They can remember them like they were weather systems. “I remember the storm of 1983 like it was yesterday.” And they also come with the gentle notion that the industry has seen it and done it all before. It’s always been harder than it is now.

But this year -2001-will mark more than a hardening of the market. It will be unique in a way the insurance industry has yet to experience.

It will be the first time consumers can go online and shop for coverage if they are not completely satisfied that they are getting the best deal from their agent. It is the first time in our newfangled “Information Age” that consumers can say “let’s just see if that’s the best price I can get.”

Of course, consumers could always shop their coverage. With direct writers, independent agents, or other sources. But they’re all part of the same club. It will be the first real reason consumers have for shopping their insurance online.

You will have to be prepared to protect your business with both comic lines and serious ones. Here’s one on the funny side from Tom Sorrels in Tyler.

“You know when we submit your application to an insurance company we have to ask you a lot of questions. Remember? Well, the company takes that information and feeds into a large computer, which processes it and prints out a roll of paper with holes in it….. Have you ever seen a player piano? You know, the ones that read music and play songs from punched paper. So we take the paper that has your “song” on it and we put it on the piano and see what song it plays. Then, whatever song it plays is YOUR insurance rate.”

At this time the customer usually asks, “What did my paper play?” And the answer, “Nearer My God to Thee.”