Do you remember your first marketing lesson? I certainly do. It happened to all of us at about the same age, the same place and with the same person....mom.

The cost of homeowners insurance claims has been increasing at twice the rate of inflation despite significant declines in recent years, according to a new report from the Insurance Research Council (IRC). The average claim payment per insured home* countrywide rose from $229 in 1997 to $625 in 2011, before falling to $442 in 2013. Even with the recent decline, average claim payments per insured home have increased at an average annualized rate of 5.0 percent since 1997. During the same period, inflation average approximately 2.4 percent.

We have read your columns before about the importance of documentation. We think you know how busy we are, and that sometimes there just isn't time to go into great detail. Most of us in the agency do a good job, but we are concerned about a couple of the CSRs (mostly one) who go overboard with abbreviations. We all use abbreviations in our documentation, but sometimes we can't understand what others have written. How do you know when abbreviations are OK to use, and when it can be too much?

We all want to condense what we write and not have to "write a book" each time we document. What are your thoughts in this area?

MIIAB has teamed up with one of the nation's leading MVR providers, American Driving Records. As an MIIAB member using ADR's round-the-clock access to MVRs, you'll be ensured to have immediate access to driving records for all 50 states at any time.