This week's Cavalcade of Risk is now posted

For a great overview of the healthcare system reforms and other risk-related matters, visit the Cav.

Safety training need not break the bank

Visit my latest column outlining inexpensive training resources for business and government. A little humor may help make important reading easier.

Cavalcade of Risk

The new Cavalcade of Risk is posted here. My article on the ADA and injured worker accommodation appears, but the entire issue this month is particularly interesting. Check it out!

New column on Allbusiness.com

Visit this link to view my latest column on disability management.

Cut advertising costs by hiring direct

Like almost every independent agent or broker I speak with across the country, you are probably trying to shrink your advertising budget yet keep your brand highly visible. Would you like to how? If you are paying your advertising agency to create your insurance or risk management copy, there is a strong possibility they are outsourcing the creation of that copy to me, or someone just like me.

That’s right, you may be paying 40-to-50 percent more for the creation of your material than you should. Don't pay overhead to agencies who either utilize in-house writers inexperienced in insurance, taking much longer to produce copy, or outsource their writing to specialists like me, then mark up those charges.

Call me today for a free consultation. With over twenty years of risk management and insurance experience, I can furnish you with copy that will make your advertising collateral shine.

Common sense risk management

Just before Christmas I was searching for a gag gift for one of my friends. I was shopping with several adjusters, and adjusters and insurance professionals, generally speaking, have very twisted senses of humor. This probably arises as a coping mechanism for dealing with mutilation, foolishness and death on a daily basis. But I digress.

I found a book of postcards titled Grandma’s Dead: Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals. As we read through the postcards, and many of them were quite graphic, we laughed so heartily and for so long that other bookstore customers began to gather around to see what all the fuss was about. Let's face it, in these economic times, everyone is looking for a laugh.

In short, the book is a series of postcard pictures of beautiful baby animals with captions like “Recycling Won’t Work," "The Meteor Can't Be Stopped," or, one germane to this post, “There is no Santa Claus.” Some of the captions are in extremely poor taste, but some are downright hilarious. See a preview at http://www.amazon.com/Grandmas-Dead-Breaking-News-Animals/dp/0061673765/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230586397&sr=8-1

As I was zooming through a slideshow last night of the people and funds that were hit in the Madoff scandal, I couldn’t help but think of the old adage that rings true especially today: “If it looks to good to be true, it probably isn’t.” One of the fund victims stated that participants questioned why they were consistently achieving about 10 percent return on investment when the global financial markets were melting down. Now they know.

What can we learn from this tragic lesson, which has rocked both charities and personal fortunes and led, so sadly, to one apparent suicide? The lesson is simple, and it is in the book Grandma’s Dead: “There is no Santa Claus.”
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Unfortunately, the impact of this crash is going to ruin many people’s holidays, probably for years to come.

If you are an agent and would like to help your commercial customers better manage their risk, refer them to my blog on AllBusiness.com at http://www.allbusiness.com/4974114-1.html. Each week I give tips to help small-to-medium sized businesses better manage their risks.

Cavalcade of Risk #67

This is my first hosting of the Cavalcade of Risk, which is made up of some of the tops blog entries on risk management written in the past few weeks. Perhaps it is the economy, maybe it is the holiday, but for whatever reason, most of the submissions have leaned toward personal finance and I have weeded most of them out. Perhaps that's because many of us are currently paper paupers. I don't know about you, but with layoffs abounding in the insurance industry and beyond, I am grateful today for the security provided by this great career.

We did have some great risk management submissions, though. Because I am by trade an insurance marketing person, I read with a cautious eye Wenchypoo's entry, The Con in Lexicon, where we are told how "mere words can rob us blind." I must say, though, I agreed with the entry and even added my own suggestion: Value-Added Tax (VAT). Although I love my Irish scarf, it is not one iota more valuable because I paid my VAT.

We have several health insurance-related posts this month, including Richard Eskow at Sentinel Effect, who suggests another approach to the auto bailout: What if the government funded and managed the Big Three's health benefits instead? The Obama team could build a working model of health reform, Richard thinks.

Another health care post is one from Jaan Sidorov at Disease Management Care. In this post, physician and ex-medical director Jaan Sidorov examines how health insurers think about generic drugs and the tricks they use to promote their use and manage their trend.

Also posting this month is Jay Norris from the Colorado Health Insurance Insider, who tells us in his entry that just providing health insurance to the uninsured would still leave us with a pretty big mess. We don't have enough primary care docs, our drugs are too expensive, our hospitals are too focused on turning a profit, we spend more than any other country on our healthcare, and yet our results are mediocre at best.

Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters gives us the gift of his insight in his blog, We Have to Deal with Costs. Clearly, the nation is at a crossroads in health coverage. The next few years will be interesting and expensive, no matter what happens.

Some companies will do anything to meet analyst and shareholder earning expectations, according to this post. Backdating contracts is one way to achieve this goal. By backdating contracts so that the revenues can be recorded for the current quarter, management is essentially recording future revenues in the current quarter. If you are considering investing, according to Qovax, take time to read both the auditor's report and the K-8s. Better yet, read this post.

In the Sun's Financial Diary, we are told the obvious: That diversification may not work in the current economic market. This article is short on answers, but what the heck, I'm in the holiday spirit.

Carson Brackney, the Personal Finance Analyst, blogs on a topic I have unfortunately experienced firsthand: a major illness sans long-term disability coverage. In Long-Term Disability Coverage Makes Sense, Brackney outlines the top reasons we need this vital coverage. In case you are wondering, I will be working much longer than I anticipated due to my lack of foresight. What are you waiting for? Call your agent.

Here's a post from the Monevator on why the riskiest assets to buy right now could be the safest: US treasuries. This article explains why.

Whenever I see the name Chris Boggs I read him because he is a strong writer and very knowledgeable. I tracked him down on My New Markets, which he edits. Boggs fills us in on Insurance for Bloggers (in three parts). Bloggers, beware!

InsureBlog gives us a really insightful post on sharia-based insurance. Is it good risk management or a cover for terror-enabling? Henry Stern takes a look at this controversial new product. I just have one question. Can women underwrite or handle the claims for the sharia-based coverage? Many interesting avenues to this post, so don't miss it.

In a timely article given that several New York workers' compensation trusts have gone belly up, Julie Ferguson of Workers Comp Insider tells us what happens to your workers' comp claim if your insurer or your employer declares bankruptcy.

In this time of economic turmoil, many of us will be either giving or receiving loans from relatives. This quick post from Bargaineering outlines some tips to help us lend without running afoul of the IRS.

This week I tackle public relations and recommend a great book in my blog Risk Management for the 21st Century. Bad PR is a killer to firms large and small, so take a gander.

To end on a humorous note, here is a great entry I found in The Employment Law Post entitled, Booze, Porn Addictions and Interventions: What a Holiday Party. I used to think I was a pretty good boss until I started watching The Office and realized I had more in common with Michael than I cared to admit. If you missed that episode of the office, see if you can find it somewhere. It's a hoot.

If you would like to post in an upcoming blog, feel free to submit to Cavalcade of Risk using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Have a safe and risk-averse holiday.

Five Reasons to Create Your Professional Bio

Every insurance professional should develop his or her professional biography. Why a bio? Because despite our increasing reliance on electronic communications, people still want to know a little about you before they contact you. Your bio is a marketing tool that helps to build your brand. Your brand is your name, and the name of your company. When people consider insurance, you want your name to be the one that comes into their minds. This can only come through repeated branding of your name, or the name of your agency, with insurance.

Here are the top reasons to write your professional bio.

There are thousands of insurance agents for people to choose from, plus growing competition from direct writers. Therefore, it is imperative that you set yourself apart from the crowd. A professional bio quickly showcases your experience and sets you apart from the crowd.

A bio is the quickest way to say, “Insurance is not just a job; insurance is my career and I am proud to be an agent.”

A bio will introduce you to new clients and potential strategic partners. Your bio can open doors to many new opportunities.

You can use your bio to obtain speaking engagements and media appearances. Perhaps you might author an article for a local newspaper on some aspect of insurance. Maybe you could be a guest on a local radio talk show. Perhaps you may give a talk at a local service organization. The bio opens the door to all this and more to help you build your brand.

Your bio can provide a dash of personal information that helps people relate to you in some way. This builds bridges and encourages people to contact you.

Your bio should be short, so pick the key points in your personal life and your career that provide the best flavor of who you are. A bio, once written, can be used again and again, or revised as your career deepens and your expertise grows.

If you need help creating a bio that works for you, feel free to contact us at Insurancewriter.com

An example of bad business writing

Sorry to dog the English since they usually do have a better command of the English language than do Americans, but here's an example of business writing at is worst.

This was recently disseminated interoffice in an insurance setting in England:

The new Bulletins system was launched on 24 March 2008. This is information regarding how HO Underwriting will utilise the system to communicate changes. Previously, communications specific to the Regions were termed Circulars andthose to Agents were Technical Bulletins. All information will now be issued via the system as Bulletins, so to differentiate between them for the purposes of explaining how the system will be used, we will refer to circulars as "regional instructions" and Technical bulletins as "general instructions".

Regions will receive advance notice of general instructions via e-mail.When published, Regions and Agents will receive the standard e-mail notification produced by the system. If you do not receive the automated e-mails that colleagues get, please contact the Service Desk to check your inclusion in the e-mail group "Networked Group Secretaries" or "UnderwritingBulletins (Advance Notice)" (or a sub-group therein). [Editorial comment: If you didn't get it, how do you know you didn't get it?]

General instructions will be made available for everyone to read and can be accessed through the Bulletin system via the (their internal intranet).(Link on the left side of the Agents page and also on the Underwriting homepage). Some bulletins may only be relevant to the Regional Underwriters (regional instructions), in which case they will be targeted at this group so that others do not receive unnecessary communications.

Therefore, if some bulletins have a limited audience, an individual's view may not include all sequencial numbers, but you will have access to bulletins relevant to yourself. Details are included in the Underwriting Procedures manual, (accessed via the Underwriting Manuals page on (their internal intranet) under: Account Management Programme / Underwriting Bulletins : Guide to issuingUnderwriting Instructions (via the Bulletins system).

Please continue to liaise with your Region regarding clarification of the detail of any bulletins, who can then liaise with HO as necessary. Any problems accessing the Bulletin system itself can be directed to the Service Desk.

Whew! I don't know about you, but I'm lost! Can you really afford to send that kind of communication to your staff? If the information is important enough to communicate, it should be right! Business communications should be crisp, clear and to the point. People can't and won't take the time to "extract" the message from the mess.

Educating insurance consumers with entertainment

One of the biggest weak spots in the industry in my opinion is that the insurance industry as a whole has pretty much failed in its public relations efforts. What the industry has allowed the plaintiff's bar to do very successfully is to educate the consumer about the role insurance should play in society, which is not too accurate a depiction. The industry has done little to counter this damage but complain.

Metropolitan Life has done something I find really interesting. They are using social media to explain to people what role insurance should play in our society. Click here to see a two-minute educational video available on www.youtube.com. What do you think?

C-Level executives obtain most of their purchasing information on line

If your business isn't advertising on line, you may be losing access to the key decision makers in today's businesses: C-level executives such as CEOs, CROs, CFOs, and CLOs.

Forbes recently completed a blind survey of 286 C-level executives and found they spend an average of 16 hours weekly on the Web, not including using e-mail. 64 percent of the respondents viewed eight or more Websites per month looking for business and financial information.

Compared to the time the C-execs spent on other resources,if you aren't making use of web advertising, you may be missing your audience.

Here is the time C-execs spent viewing other medium:

• TV 8.6 hours per week
• Magazines 6.6 hours per week
• Newspapers 6.6 hours per week
• Radio 5.7 hours per week

Should you rethink your advertising dollars? If so, please call to view our innovative HTML advertising campaigns or White Papers that have helped drive traffic to our clients' sites. We have helped dozens of financial services companies build a strong web presence. We would love to help you deliver a crisp, clear message that reaches your intended audience at a rate that is amazingly affordable.

Call (602) 870-3230 for a rapid response.

Upcoming speaking engagement

Nancy Germond will address the Loss Executives Association's (LEA) 77th Spring Meeting and Educational Conference in Portland, Main, on June 12, 2008. Her session, "Brain Drain in the Insurance Industry," provides proactive tips for managing, retaining and training insurance industry personnel. With more than one quarter of the U.S. population eligible to retire in the next few years, this topic is critical to the strategic management of insurance organizations.

The LEA is the premier source of education and training of property claims managers nationwide.

Nancy's articles appear in industry trade journals and her weekly column, "Risk Management for the 21st Century," appears on Allbusiness.com.