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Lone Star Welcomes UFAA Chapter 15

Who: Chapter 15 Members* & spouse or guest

What: The Chapter 15  2011 Christmas Party

When: Saturday, December 3rd  6 PM

Where: Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon 101 E Albany in Broken Arrow, Ok.

See map and driving directions above. 

Why?: It's our annual get-to-gather for camaraderie, conversation & gift exchange  

Affiliate or Associate Member only $15 gift card card. With guest $25 card. (Max card value $25)

Regular Member only receives a $25 gift card. With guest $50 card.  (Max card value $50) 

Other: Gift Exchange: EACH person attending is to bring a $15-$20 wrapped gift. 

NEW:  Live entertainment is currently being planned for the party

Reservations Required

R.S.V.P Deadline: Chapter Meeting Day on Dec. 1st

Preferred Registration: Email your reservations with member and guest names to glassins@hotmail.com Other party questions, contact Mike Glass at 918-663-5314 or by preferred email above.  

[*Sorry, Limited E&O Members & Chapter 99 Members are not considered members of any local UFAA Chapter.] 

Thousands of agents already choose AMP for their direct mail efforts, but even these agents may not be aware of just how valuable AMP leads are.

AMP's direct mail program uses a number of models to score and identify the very best prospects in every market, focusing your direct mail efforts on customers who are likely to respond and buy from you. We have partnered with a premiere direct mail analytics company to build and constantly fine-tune the models used in selecting these leads. It's worth taking a moment to look at how that process works, and the results that process brings to agents using AMP leads.

The process starts with 200 million customer names across our 30 exclusive-agent states. We then count out any current Farmers, 21st Century and Bristol West customers. Next we remove anyone who's indicated they don't want to receive direct mail. Then, we verify addresses using U.S. Postal Service software to ensure the deliverability of each address.

Now the fun begins. Each month we run billions of computations on the prospect file to determine which prospects are most likely to respond to and buy from you. These prospects are then sorted, and the very best are matched to AMP-subscribing agents.

And a recent study has reinforced that all that work up-front pays off. We analyzed all new households added between January 2009 and June 2011, separating these new customers into two groups:

• Forty-five percent of the new households written in this timeframe received one or more direct mail pieces from a Farmers program, including AMP, within 90 days of becoming a customer.
• Fifty-five percent never received a single mailer.

Take a look at how AMP agents stack up to non-AMP agents.  (Per Farmers email to agents)

 3. Okla Voice,*    

Regarding the Farmers/Schirado case. I am a recently retired Farmers Agent, and I am not defending Farmers in any way. But, I cannot believe what mistakes Schirado made. First, you personally hand the resignation letter to your DM with a signed acknowledgement of receipt, [not just fax it.] Or, as I did, you  mail it certified with return receipt to the state office. Next, by sending such a ridiculous letter to his clients, he (Schirado) did violate his contract. Finally, getting appointments with other carriers is not a violation, but writing business that was acceptable to Farmers, is a violation.

Yes, I did withhold transfer of the files and telephone number until I received my first contract value check, which arrived in the mail 12 days after my termination. This was clearly stated in my resignation letter per the terms of the AAA Contract.  By the way, my DM picked up the files in a neat and orderly condition,  not dumped into trash bags. Okie Agent

Dear Okie Agents, Thanks for your responses to our article last month. The contract is pretty clear on this issue of switching policies to other carriers.  Okie Agent 1, We have not been able to find any court docs later than the date of the appeal decision. Either it was settled out of court, still lingers in the court system or other unknowns.*     

*This article and comments are not actionable legal advice on how to submit your termination letter or how Farmers defines and pursues alleged contract violations. Consult an attorney for details. You do not want to find yourself in a position of Farmers filing a suit against you based on your alleged actions.    

Catastrophes caused significant 2011 first-half underwriting losses for U.S. property and casualty insurers, driving the industry's net income for that time period down 67 percent to $6.9 billion relative to the year before, according to an A.M. Best Special Report.

A.M. Best adds in its report, "U.S. Property/Casualty-6-Months Underwriting Trends," that the industry is likely to remain under pressure for the remainder of 2011 as underwriting results are expected to remain weak, commercial lines are expected to remain competitive and investment yields are expected to remain low.

The report says catastrophe-related losses in the first half totaled $27 billion for U.S. insurers, contributing 12.8 points to the combined ratio, compared to 5.8 points in the prior year's first half. The 2011 first-half combined ratio stood at 109.6, up from 100.4.

The overall industry underwriting loss for the half-year was $22 billion, compared to $2.5 billion a year ago.

For personal lines, the first-half net loss was $0.9 billion, compared to net income of $5.8 billion a year ago. The swing is attributable to an underwriting loss of $11.2 billion, driven by catastrophes, A.M. Best says.

For commercial lines, net income dropped 44.2 percent to $5.6 billion in the first half compared to net income of $10 billion a year ago. The underwriting loss was $8.4 billion, and the combined ratio climbed to 108.3 from 100.8.

A.M. Best notes that the P&C industry's top-line growth trended upward, as net premiums written grew 2.7 percent in the half to $217 billion, up from $211.2 billion a year ago.

Policyholder surplus also increased to $556.2 billion from $554.3 billion.

Investment performance "improved modestly," A.M. Best says, with investment gains coming in at $28.7 billion compared to $27.6 billion a year ago.

Speaking to market conditions, A.M. Best says rate increases continue for personal lines, but commercial lines has not seen widespread rate hardening despite the cat losses.  

"To access or use the Farmers eMail Program, you need to acknowledge you have received, read, and understood the following Notice and you agree to be bound by its terms by checking the box below and clicking "Continue." it continued with more verbiage until the last paragraph where it stated,  

Farmers reserves the right to modify this Notice, as well as the policies referenced above, without prior notice. Violations of this Notice or other policies of Farmers may result in termination of your appointment agreement or other business relationships with Farmers and/or its appointed agents or district managers, and/or criminal or civil penalties. Creation Date: 06/21/2010

  [   ]  I acknowledge and agree to this Notice.       [CONTINUE]

I am not a computer guru but, I was NOT going to agree to such an open-ended and unknown change policy that could involuntarily cause termination. So, with a little Google research, I discovered a backdoor access to the Farmersagent.com email system. Admittedly, somewhat more limited than going through dashboard but, it by-passes the Farmers Email Program Notice. The back door entry still allows access to view all the spam that comes to agent email boxes daily, along with all the junk that Farmers Departments, including the state office, pumps out daily. Probably, like you, ninety-eight percent of that junk we could operate without which is a real non-productive time eater sorting through the the good, bad and the ho-hum.

I want to know about problematic ACA's, benefit changes, customer and agent emails, Cat losses and a few other things vital to the operations of my agency. Who is first in auto and life contests, along with golf outings and other emails like "A DM's brother died" just does not trip my trigger. Hey, I feel bad for the family involved, but who, state-wide, knew this guy? That email should have been directed to, likely, just the district involved. And, for the contests, those emails should be directed to those involved in the contest, not the agents at-large! The best I've seen is the state office who duplicates a management created email that originally went to all agents. But, duh, is resent to you again from the state office as if the person duplicating it was the original author. That could be plagiarism, use of Farmers confidential info, or just outright theft of copy-write material.

The bottom line is, Farmersagent email system needs a traffic cop who can sort out, #1 the SPAM that is clearly marked on many emails, and #2 the other JUNK such as AFS twice-daily mail that is not marked.
The non-essential emails have been so bad lately, that we find it a real chore to access the company email, knowing it will be of little, if any, benefit of our agency operations.  Okie Agent.

Dear Okie Agent, Wow! Nuff Said! Let's poll the agents to see if they agree. We will show their results in next month's issue. The pic above is just a few of the many thousands of spam-tags  -ed

Pulse of the Agents Poll