Awkward Insurance

Tracy Cotton has been an underwriter, CSR, consultant, producer, marketer, and instructor in her 25+ year career in insurance. Now she is putting it all to work in a new role as Executive Client Manager for Starr-Mathews Agency in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She didn’t create this job but feels as if it were created just for her. She gets to work closely with middle market to large commercial clients to offer a more concierge level of service than either a typical CSR or producer can balance. Every day is different and she loves getting to help onboard new clients and grease the wheels for more value-added renewal reviews. She enjoys connecting with industry peers and is a founding member of the #5amclubins on Twitter. When she isn’t evaluating work comp audits and creating service plans, her passion is to get outdoors with her dog, Jasper. Although she still loves the mountains of Western North Carolina, where she lived for many years, she is currently digging finding places to hike, backpack, and paddle in southeastern Tennessee.

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

Tune in to hear their discussion about confidence, embarrassment, the struggle to be taken seriously in the workplace, and how to take control of you own education.

Need more inspiration? Find your own path to success with a National Alliance Learning Path!

About Our Guest: 

Cat Ferris, CIC, CRM, CPCU, CLCS, AU is the Commercial Lines Academic Director with the National Alliance. In her twenty years of experience within the industry, Cat has focused most of her career in commercial underwriting, and independent agency training. Based out of Gainesville, Florida her hobbies include bodybuilding, gardening, and spoiling her dogs more than her kids.

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

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Tracy Cotton, CIC, CISR has been an underwriter, CSR, consultant, producer, marketer, and instructor in her more than 25-year career in insurance. Now she is putting it all to work in a new role as Executive Client Manager for Starr-Mathews Agency in Chattanooga, Tennessee. While she didn’t create this job, she feels as if it were created just for her. She gets to work closely with middle-market to large commercial clients to offer a more concierge level of service than either a typical CSR or producer can balance. Every day is different and she loves getting to help onboard new clients and grease the wheels for more value-added renewal reviews. She enjoys connecting with industry peers and is a founding member of the #5amclubins on Twitter. When she isn’t evaluating work comp audits and creating service plans, her passion is to get outdoors with her dog, Jasper. Although she still loves the mountains of western North Carolina, where she lived for many years, she currently enjoys finding places to hike, backpack, and paddle in southeastern TN.

Ashley Fitzsimmons, CISR, serves as the Director of Professional Development for the Ohio Insurance Agents Association, Inc., Ashley has grown up in insurance and has nearly a decade of real-life experience on the agency side. She has had to overcome the same daily struggles and has personally researched and implemented many tools and programs to help her family agency run more efficiently. Her nine years spent as the fourth generation in a family agency located near Scranton, Pennsylvania, obtaining her CISR designation, holding multiple speaking engagements across the country, and being nominated for the 2018 National CSR of the year have given her the knowledge and experience to help other agents thrive instead of just survive.

Reuben Hall has been in the insurance industry for more than five years with experience on the agency side as well as on the carrier side. For the last three years, Reuben as worked at Oswald Companies in Cleveland, Ohio as an Associate Client Manager in the Specialty Risk industry. He is also a member of Oswald’s Young Professionals Leadership Council, which recruits young talent to the insurance industry and participates in various volunteer opportunities in the community. Reuben is the 2020 CSR of the year for Ohio.

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

Want to take a deeper dive?

Build your selling and service skills with our Dynamics of Selling Course and see how your agency measures up with The Pulse of Customer Service publication!

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

Dustyne’s Final Thoughts: Working with Wes has been one of the highlights of my career. I learned so much about the practice of communication while working with him. The honesty and openness between the two of us were always on point. I never feared letting him know if something was wrong with one of his accounts because I knew he’d jump in to help. Often, we are successful not because of what we have done for ourselves, but because of the ways others have supported us.  Together we rise when we support each other.

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

In this Episode of Awkward Insurance, guest and Team Lead for Claims at Penn National Insurance, Nikki Wyatt, joins host Dustyne Bryant, MBA, CIC, CISR, to discuss one corner of the gig economy: Transportation Network Companies (TNC). Nikki shares with us her intimate knowledge of TNC coverage and exposures from a claims perspective. Listen in as they share both their personal and professional experiences with Transportation Networks and Rides Shares, such as Uber and Lyft. Customer Service Reps and Account Managers can learn a thing or two from podcast. Tune in!

To learn more about TNC Exposures register for the CISR Insuring Personal Auto course or the CIC Personal Lines course!

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

For account managers, communicating their needs and expectations to carriers can be frustrating. Carriers have specific ideas on what preferred business looks like, but what comes across the desk may not always fit the mold. What clients are looking for, may not match what a carrier is offering. Carrier marketing representatives, territory managers, and the likes are there to bridge the gap between insurance companies and agency professionals.

Listen closely to pick up golden nuggets about how both agency professionals and carrier marketing representatives can squeeze the most out of their meetings together. Cultivating these relationships will add value for the client and to the agency as these relationships help build profitable books of business.

Heath Shearon

Insurance Town

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

So, why is this so awkward?

No one likes hard conversations. Especially ones about breaking up with your insurance provider. When cancellation requests come across your desk, you may ask yourself “why didn’t they call?” Maybe, there was no hint. They just up and went with somebody else. Why is it so hard for some clients to let us know they aren’t happy? Are they embarrassed? What other conversations are they hesitant to have?

Before you start doubting yourself, understand that this is sometimes what people do. They talk to their friends, or they search on Google, or sometimes they are just misinformed. If  a customer is too embarrassed to ask you about something, they may get some bad advice from a neighbor. 

Learn More! 

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.

Wildfires happen every year but have been astonishingly frequent recently. This past September, one of the most destructive wildfires to date was started by a gender reveal party in California. This particular wildfire has destroyed over 10,000 acres, displaced over 21,000 people, and resulted in the death of a firefighter. How can insurance help situations like these?

Insurance professionals helping folks with this kind of trouble must ensure that they understand the coverage they're selling. Many insurance companies have started segmenting endorsements to help tailor coverage as much as possible. Are you sure you’ve got the right replacement costs for your clients? Do you just skim through replacement cost estimators?

We all know there's not one policy that's covers everything. So when writing the right limits for your client, remember it's not just for the claim, it's also for retention and relationships. But most importantly, it’s for peace of mind, the whole reason they're buying the coverage from you in the first place.

Tune into this lively discussion to learn how you can provide better coverage and support for you clients and agency.

About our Host: Dustyne Bryant, CIC, CISR, MBA

Dustyne Bryant, Personal Lines Academic Director at The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research, is a self-professed and colleague–backed wholehearted Personal Lines Insurance geek. Supported by multiple degrees and designations over the course of a decade and rising, her thirst for knowledge is never ending and ever growing. Her passion for educating others in Personal Insurance, is even greater. She is an advocate of permanency for children in foster care and relishes all the joys of being a soccer mom, minus the minivan.  Learn More!

Focusing exclusively on risk management and insurance professional development, the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance provides a practical advantage at every career stage, positioning our participants and their clients for confidence and success.