Physician, heal thyself!

I was speaking to a business networking group earlier this month.  My presentation was about business new year’s resolutions.  I had done the same presentation a couple of other times and folks enjoyed it, so they wanted me to do it again.  But this year I realized I wasn’t listening to my own advice.

To not be called a hypocrite, I am following through on some of what I spoke about. I shared about an article I read which described some business resolutions we can make.  One suggested resolution struck a chord with me.  In short, it proposed that while I may know a lot of people, not many of them really know what I do.  So, my first ever blog post intends to fix that.

I am an independent insurance agent and broker.  That’s the title.  Here is what it means:  I represent different insurance companies so I can provide the best coverage at the best price for my clients.  You might not recognize some of the company names.  That’s not because they aren’t reputable. They are some of the largest insurers in the world.   You haven’t heard of them because they don’t spend a huge amount of their budget on advertising like the insurance companies whose commercials make you laugh.

Insurers that do business through independent agents rely on us to educate consumers that they have good coverages and will pay claims.  I’ve never figured out how a funny commercial makes somebody think they will have the proper coverage and have their claim paid.  And since the insurers I do business with don’t spend a ton of money on commercials, those expenses aren’t included in the rates that they charge my clients!

I counsel individuals and businesses on what insurance coverage they need.  I have some initials after my name on my business card:  CIC and CRM.  Those stand for Certified Insurance Counselor and Certified Risk Manager.  The titles are pretty self-explanatory.  These designations took me many hours of classroom courses, homework and exams to attain.  And I participate in annual continuing education to maintain those designations.

I’m not bragging.  I’m explaining that at my agency we are committed to staying informed about the insurance industry.  Things change and we know how to handle those changes.

There are a lot of insurance terms that we understand because we use them every day.  Attorneys write the insurance policies.  But we can translate them in to plain English for you.  We have years of experience and training.  You can worry about other things, let us worry about your insurance.

I am a personal advisor.  We get to choose the insurer that is the best match for our client.  And we take the time to understand our clients’ exposures so that we can recommend the correct way to cover those exposures.  Our clients trust that they have the proper coverage.  And they don’t have to worry about doing it on their own.  It’s called peace of mind.

That’s what I do.  You might ask what the photograph of me standing next to a stuffed moose has to do with that.  It has nothing to do with it.  I read that you need to include a good image with a blog post.  That’s a picture from a trip to Niagara Falls Canada last summer.  It made me smile just now when I dug it up.

Let me know what you do!  I may have an idea of who you work for.  But I may not really know what you do.