The top ten business classes written by our insurance agency group through AccessPLUS in April were:

The Strategic Insurance Agency Alliance (SIAA) has signed its 4,000th member agency — Bi-State Insurance & Financial of Camp Girardeau, Mo.

Meet our SIAA Regional President Tom Barrett at the MIAA Convention on May 14th & 15th in LaVista, NE!  RSVP to Josh Nordin at MIAA   From the October 2010 issue of American Agent & Broker In a world of immediate gratification and multi-layered communication, we seem to always want the trick, the magic pill and the secret to sales success. Producers constantly look for shortcuts and the ability to save on effort. Well, there is a secret to sales success: structure. There is a need to have structure in our prospecting, qualifying, referring, organizing, planning, goal setting and sales…

The top ten business classes written by our insurance agency group through AccessPLUS in March were:

We’re seeing the results of insurance carrier reactions to the losses in 2011.  How has 2011 affected your agency? Attend the MIAA Convention on May 14th and 15th to learn how your agency can navigate through the hard market in a way that surpasses the competition.   FOLLOWING ARTICLE BY CHAD HEMENWAY, PROPERTYCASUALTY360.COM April 17, 2012 The 108.2 combined ratio posted by the private property and casualty industry in the U.S. was the worst since 2001.

BY CHAD HEMENWAY, PROPERTYCASUALTY360.COM April 16, 2012 The National Weather Service reports 126 tornadoes touched down in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma Saturday and early Sunday. The count is not official. Many of the tornadoes have been reported in isolated areas of rural Kansas—99 of the 126 tornado reports are from Kansas, reports catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions. Currently, insurers are responding to the hardest-hit areas in Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa to help residents there begin to pick up the pieces and assess damage from wind and hail.

BY CATERINA PONTORIERO, PROPERTYCASUALTY360.COM April 12, 2012 • Reprints Anyone who has tied the knot recently knows that the cost of weddings is sky-high. According to The Wedding Report, the total average wedding spending for 2011 was $25,631. That’s a lot of money to invest into an event where so much can go wrong, from flowers not being delivered and DJs not showing up to sickness and catastrophic weather-related events causing cancellations. Travelers—which offers wedding insurance to cover items such as lost deposits, perishable materials, unavoidable cancellation, lost or damaged photographs, damaged gifts, host liability and more—recently analyzed its wedding insurance claims…

April 10 (Reuters) – As weather disasters strike with more frequency, U.S. homeowners first get hit with the destruction or total loss of property. Many are then hit with the unexpected loss of homeowners insurance policies as insurance companies re-evaluate their financial liabilities.

This event occurred on Tuesday, April 3, 2012 at 2:33 a.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) at the following location: 217 miles from Wichita, Kansas 180 miles from Joplin, Missouri 97 miles from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 2 miles from Pittsburg, Oklahoma

These fast facts can help you explain to your customers why rates are increasing industry wide. Why are they doing this!? 2011 set a new record of 99 Federal Disaster Declarations (previous record was 81 set in 2010) 2011 total thunderstorm losses set a new record of over $25 Billion (Previous records were just over $10 Billion in 2008 & 2009) 2011 had the 2nd highest tornado count in US history at 1,893 (1st highest count was 2,194 in 2008) 2011 SPRING storm activity was the 4th most costly event in US P&C Insurance history at $21.3 Billion (9/11 was $24…