Swan Song

This is my swan song to you. In just a few days I’ll begin a new job with a new set of challenges. In just a few weeks I’ll be married and beginning a new life. It’s been quite a month of inspection and introspection. When I decided to leave Insurance Journal, the hardest thing for me was to leave the insurance agents of Texas. I’m serious. I can edit anywhere. I can write about thousands of topics. But where else can I support and listen to such a disparate yet cohesive bunch of entrepreneurs and true business folks. I have often felt more like your advocate than your editor—and that’s the way I preferred it.

I have very simple advise to pass along in my wake: Find Your Voice and Pay Attention. I say find your voice because every single day I come into work I hear the phrase “insurance industry”. It’s portrayed as this great big happy family that has socials on Fridays and church picnics on Sundays. And on many levels it is a big happy family. But like all families where money gets involved, there are bumps, if not total detours, along the way. Make sure you know what your best interests are. They’re probably not the same as those of insurance companies, reinsurers and wholesalers.

Pay Attention. It sounds easy enough. Like something you might have done in grade school. But it means delivering yourself from the day-to-day activities that can consume you. It means reading the story about the small agent in New York who had his program business pulled by a major carrier and then went through two years of litigation getting it back. It means taking that story and applying it to the contracts you sign with your carriers.

I read stories every week about agents that have problems with carriers. And the agents you hear about are always the ones that have the resources to fight back and make a stink. The more frightening aspect is that we’ll never hear from the agents that don’t have the resources. It’s part of my job to connect the dots—between the agent terminated in New Braunfels to the one in Amarillo to the one in Houston. You should connect the dots, as well. It’s part of “paying attention”. And then you should use your voice to make sure that agents, who operate so independently, create a safety net and defense mechanism to protect your profession.

Several months ago the Michigan agents association floated collective bargaining legislation to see how it would be received. Most everyone in the “industry” hated the idea or had no response. No surprises there, considering the “industry” (carriers) would have the most to lose. Pay attention. Who would have thought Texas doctors would have felt forced to traverse that same road. Many things will stay the same in your industry, but you can not be blind to those things that are changing.

Thanks to all of the agents I’ve had the good fortune to meet in the last five years. Collectively, and independently, you are a great bunch of people. May our paths cross in the future.

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