Information to help you grow and succeed
Staying up-to-date on current trends is a full-time job. No worries, we've got you covered! Our weekly Blogs cover hot-topic information all housed in one place, making searching for new growth strategies a breeze!
Insurance Aggregators / Insurance How-To / Personal Development / Uncategorized
Becoming Independent: Leaving Captivity
Content Marketing / Digital Marketing / Insurance How-To / Local Marketing
Free Marketing Tools for Insurance Agents
Our Most Recent Blogs
ASNOA EVP Speaks on 2020 Profitability
With 2020 upon us, we have turned the calendar on another outstanding year for ASNOA and our Affiliate Agencies. In the coming weeks and months, carriers will begin to payout profit and growth bonuses for 2019 performance. Thanks to the hard work of our Affiliates, and The ASNOA Advantage®, we expect to have a very large number of our Affiliates reap the benefits. ASNOA Affiliates manage profit in their agencies through front line underwriting, proper risk placement when it comes to our carrier partners, and finally by mitigating losses via open communication with our carriers’ claims departments. While profit remains...
How To: Job posting
Where and How Should I Post My Job Openings? The most common way individuals recruit new hires is through referrals – you know someone who knows someone. Sound familiar? If this, unfortunately, is not the case, then you have to venture out into the wide world of online job postings. To make matters worse, getting your online job posting just right is essential to attracting the right candidates. Your job listing is the first, and often only, place you have to create an impression on top talent. So how do you construct an attractive job posting guaranteed to get your...
Self-driving Cars: Where will they steer the insurance world?
Autonomous vehicles, a concept we’ve always associated with sci-fi movies is now integrating into our reality. This new decade will bring a rise in the popularity and availability of ‘self-driving’ vehicles, but what does that mean for the insurance industry? Based on research conducted by Tesla, Thesimpledollar.com stated that the safety features of self-driving cars can reduce the risk of accidents and traffic violations. However, that doesn’t guarantee cheaper car insurance premiums for drivers. A study by insurance firm Accenture and the Stevens Institute of Technology predicted the insurance industry will see traditional premiums drop by $25 billion by 2035,...
Ask Anissa: EPIC Downloads
Let’s start off the New Year right with Better Downloads! As you may have noticed, the training department will be purging suspense come January 6th, 2020. Now is the time to check suspense for all of your agency policy downloads and have them assigned out. It is crucial to follow-up on your downloads, so all of your client data is accurate, up-to-date, and so commissions are paid on time. Please take advantage of the built-in “Follow Up on Download” activity when adding policies into Epic. When you keep the activity open with your preferred follow-up date selected, the activity will...
Ways to put more cash in your pocket as an insurance agent: Limiting MVR chargebacks
Ways to put more cash in your pocket as an insurance agent: Limiting MVR Chargebacks One quick and easy way to put more cash in your pocket as an agency owner is to look at your MVR chargeback conversion percentages. These seem like small one-off charges, but they add up rather quickly, especially as you grow. It is always best practice to run MVR reports only on the policies you are truly confident in closing. But let's see what it looks like if you really focus on helping to limit these expenses. For all the newbies out there, MVR chargebacks...
Webinars: Worthless or Worth it?
Five Questions to Ask Before You Register for a Webinar to Know If It's Worth Your Time We know there have been a lot of emails going out about upcoming webinars. They are great, inexpensive alternatives to classes and conferences that you can attend right from your home or office. But how do you know which ones are worth your time? First, let’s start with a definition: “A webinar is a live, virtual event that is executed online. It is an educational or instructive session that includes audio and visual communication between a speaker and attendees.” https://learn.g2.com/what-is-a-webinar Five Questions to...
Introductory Meeting with Carriers
Your First 180 Days as an Independent Agent: Recommendations for Success In this blog, we are going to cover what you should ask during your introductory meeting with carriers, documents to gather, and a template to keep it all organized. This will be the first in a series of blogs covering different topics that we think all agent owners should consider when transitioning from the captive market to the independent side. Your “to-do list” as an independent agent is totally different from a captive agent’s. Especially in the beginning, when you are rebuilding your new independent brand, carrier relations and...
Adding Financial Planning to Your Offerings
Are you leaving money on the table? According to The Overlooked Gap in Financial Advice, by Chubb and Oliver Wyman, "research reveals that nearly 40% of successful individuals would consider switching to a financial advisor who provides P&C support." However, "only 28% of advisors currently provide P&C support." That leaves a wide gap for independent insurance agents to happily fill in order to attract and retain more clients. Think about the prospecting and cross-selling you could do if you also offered wealth planning. You could more holistically advocate for your clients in all of their big financial decisions. That puts...
Tips to Track Profit and Loss from EVP
Profit and loss is top of mind for every agency and network as we enter into the fourth quarter. That means now is a great time to revisit your profit and loss ratios with each of your carrier partners. ASNOA wants to continue our profitability trend, paying out agents with bonuses for jobs well done. Because of our pooled volume, we are able to qualify for most carrier profit-sharing benefits as a network. I want to take a moment to lay out a few tactics that can help agent owners keep track of their progress toward year-over-year growth and year-to-date...
Applied Epic 2019 Latest Changes
Have You Tried Turning It Off and Back On Again? The latest update from Applied Epic 2019 If you haven’t already noticed, Applied Systems has updated to Epic 2019. While this is exciting news, many new features need to be set up on your end. Whenever a simple update comes through, we always say: “restart your computer”. This time, you really do have to restart your computer. Click here for instructions on how to install Epic 2019. It will prompt you to restart your computer so that it can work properly. If you are experiencing an error, Click here. If...
Who is ASNOA?
The Agent Support Network of America (ASNOA) is a fully integrated marketing and service network for independent insurance agents. We offer more than just carrier and market access, we support your entire business with our list of services, which includes accounting, licensing, marketing, training, and ongoing education. Contact us today to see how we can help you grow your agency.