As we saw in our last post, keeping up with emails can be a huge drain on anyone’s productivity. It is no different for independent insurance agents. In some ways, email is a “necessary evil.” It is the preferred mode of communication for most of your clients,...
When email became standard in the workforce in the early 1990s, inboxes received a modest amount of traffic, and you may have even been excited to hear “you've got mail!” That is rarely the case anymore. With literally hundreds of emails coming in each day, shifting...
If you’re tracking your agency’s premiums and commissions by Excel STOP right now! Back away slowly from your computer…you don’t need to do this! Using Excel to track your commissions is like using a pair of scissors to cut your lawn: it gets the job done, but it is...
In a recent post, we took a look at the differences between cash and accrual accounting methods, both of which have their own benefits. No matter which methods your agency is using, you should be using it within an integrated accounting system. Integrated accounting...
In our last post we looked at the differences between cash and accrual accounting and, although each has its own benefits and drawbacks, most insurance agencies tend to use an accrual accounting system. If you’re using a cash system you may find that, as your agency...
We all know the story of Goldilocks and the three bears: Goldilocks tries out the bears’ food, chairs and beds and settles in to the items that are “just right.” When it comes to your agency management system, you need to be Goldilocks (minus the breaking and...
As we’ve mentioned in some of our previous posts, it is important for you to take a good, hard look at your agency’s processes to ensure you’re maximizing your time and efforts. This can seem like a daunting task, but it can be surprisingly easy when you break down...
Your agency management system is a lot of what makes your agency work – it holds all your client information, tracks your accounting, stores documents and provides prospect research all in one place. It’s an investment of your agency’s time and money, and you want to...
As conventional phones become less prominent in homes throughout the country, so too do traditional phone systems. Many are switching to VoIP ( Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems that, true to their name, transmit calls via the internet. With VoIP, you can...
In our last post, we looked at some all-in-one cloud apps combining e-mail, document sharing/storage, and calendar sharing to save time (and money!) for your agency’s daily operations. These all-in-one tools bring the benefit of synching operations, yet some agencies...