Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

I was pretty excited about one of Seth Godin’s recent posts regarding the differences between workers and entrepreneurs. I found it especially fitting as the InsureMe company has gone through some changes in recent weeks and many of us have faced the challenge of realizing our value in the company and wondering how we’re suppose to better ourselves with so many constraints on our time.

Godin says quite aptly:

What happens when your inbox is empty?

What happens when all the agenda items and all the incoming emails are cleared?

Time to go home.

A job well done. Congratulations, you earned your paycheck.

This is the factory mindset that has been drilled into us since kindergarten. You get assignments, you do your best, and you finish them.

It is at this point that we draw the line between workers and entrepreneurs, between people who work in marketing and marketers.

The challenge is NOT to empty your inbox. The challenge is not to get your boss to tell you what to do.

The challenge is to ask a two part question:

What next? What now?

Asking is the hard part.

I suppose we can all be satisfied with the status quo. And I suppose most supervisors in the world can be satisfied with the status quo. But really…why would you want to?

Take some time this weekend to identify how you can go the extra mile in your job. Whether it’s coming in 15 minutes early to catch up on a blog or two or reading one work-related book per month, I think you’ll find that going the extra mile has equal benefits for you and your clients. And that warrants a big thumbs up.

According to the Insurance Journal, the state of New York is proposing new legislation to keep children under the age of 11 from riding alone on amusement park rides that take them out of the line of sight of ride operators.

Whew. That’s a mouthful. And a pretty good indication that this bill is a complicated waste of time, if you ask me.

The legislation, reports the Insurance Journal, is part of six bills resulting from the state’s four amusement park deaths last year. One victim, a seven-year old, died during a boat-themed ride when he got out of his seat and fell in a dark tunnel at Playland Park.

Personally, I hate amusement parks. I’ll forever be the girl standing down below holding the coats, chapstick and other pocketed contents of friends and family because being whipped around by rickety carnival equipment is just not my idea of fun (although I do like the crazy boat ride shown in the photo…) . But despite my devil-incarnate feelings about amusement parks, I understand that most of the world loves them. And in accordance, parks and rides need to be safe, which I don’t think has anything to do with the age of riders.

“Are kids going to have to stand in line with a birth certificate?” wonders Deputy County Executive, Larry Schwartz.

Good point. And besides that, I don’t see how a ride can be safer for a 12-year old than an 11-year old. Makes no sense to me. And what if you’re a shorty like me? You could be well into your 20’s and still slip underneath the safety bar while the Super Nausea 8000 throws you into the stratosphere.

Good try, New York, but this is just silliness. Stick to height requirements, parental supervision and legislation to increase safety measures–not riding age–at amusement parks.

There’s some rather disconcerting news today regarding a jump in uninsured Americans.

According to MSNBC, a new Commonwealth Fund study found that the percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005–up from 28 percent in 2001.

The study illustrates the dire situation for Middle America, as more employers are dropping health insurance coverage or offering plans that are too expensive. The article also points out that the percentage of adults earning less than $20,000 a year without insurance rose to 53 percent in 2004, up from 49 percent in 2001.

While this news is alarming on all fronts, I was especially disturbed to see the stats on preventative care among uninsured adults. According to the study:

• Cost prevented over 41 percent of uninsured adults from seeing a doctor, compared to just over 9 percent of uninsured adults with health coverage
• 51 percent of women without health insurance haven’t had a mammogram in two years, compared to almost 23 percent of women with insurance
• Over 76 percent of uninsured men between 40 and 64 years of age haven’t had a PSA test (which detects prostate cancer) in two years, compared to over 52 percent of their insured counterparts

Ugh. It’s hard to believe that this is the reality of health coverage in this country, but on the other hand, I’m just as appalled by the people who think they’re entitled to unnecessary medical treatment (multiple MRIs, for example) because they have Medicaid and the government is footing the bill.

There’s got to be some kind of happy medium here. Should every state adapt the Massachusetts view on health care and make it mandatory? Should we adapt a more European style of health care? Obviously if someone had the cure-all, we’d have it by now…but seriously. It’s 2006 and this is the United States. Am I the only who’s disturbed by these new findings?

After yesterday’s rant regarding Dave Anderson’s article this month’s issue of Health Insurance Underwriter magazine, I was happy to rediscover the magazine’s more redeeming qualities when I came across an article about replacing pricey direct mail campaigns with online insurance lead generation. The article was written by the marketing director of an InsureMe competitor, but nonetheless, the author’s points underscore how agents on all sides of the business can take advantage of insurance leads.

Why should you think about kicking direct mail to the curb? According to author Jeremiah Desmarais, response rates for lead-generation direct mail campaigns are at an all time low: 1.43 percent, down from 2.09 percent in 2004. Still, the financial services industry continues to throw money into the abyss of junk mail.

Desmarais contends that putting your resources toward insurance leads will save you money and yield better results–all with less effort.

Now, because InsureMe sells insurance leads, I’m inclined to agree with Desmarais, except for the “less effort” part. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

…Read the rest of this entry »

Nine times out of 10, I love everything that is the Health Insurance Underwriter magazine. In fact, I’ll probably be citing some juicy vittles from the May issue in tomorrow’s post.

However, I’m making some time this afternoon to take issue with this month’s HIU sales column, Fly with the Eagles, which is entitled: Stop Being Interesting and Start Being Interested.

Stop being interesting? I thought as I scanned the column. What an awful idea.

…Read the rest of this entry »

Nice little post from AdJab today (courtesy of James at the InsureMe Affiliate Blog) about GEICO. Apparently the lizard-loving company’s pants are in a bunch over a radio ad run by New York’s Tri-State Consumer Insurance Company.

[...] the Tri-State Consumer Insurance Company, is running a sixty-second radio ad which features a gecko very similar to the Geico gecko telling listeners about great car rates. Unfortunately, before the gecko can really say anything, we hear the sound of a car running over him and another voiceover telling us that Tri-State has great rates without the superfluous cartoon characters.

Now GEICO has filed a suit against Tri-State, saying that the radio ad confuses consumers into thinking their gecko mascot is affiliated with Tri-State.

Man. GEICO must really think consumers are stupid. Not that we haven’t heard the consumer confusion song and dance before.

There’s quite an interesting post over at Stumbling and Mumbling, which asks the same question.

Norm, the author of Stumbling and Mumbling, makes some particularly interesting points regarding adverse selection, moral hazard and our tendency to over estimate small probabilities. It’s a great post in my opinion, and presents information from both sides of the fence without necessarily choosing a side. Good brain food for a Monday morning.

I won’t reduce the gravity of the post with my ramblings; check it out here and let me know what you think.

[HAT TIP:] The Insurance Coverage Law Blog for the link to Norm’s blog.

Alright, this isn’t funny so I really shouldn’t jest about this in my blog headline.

That said, the Insurance Journal reported today that injuries from lawn mowing are on the rise. According a study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomber School of Public Health, nearly 80,000 Americans require hospital treatment from lawn mower injuries every year, with the majority of injuries occurring in children under the age of 15 and adults over 60 years of age.

The senior author of the study, Dr. David Bishai, said that there’s no reason anyone under the age of 12 should ever be injured by a lawn mower

“If we would keep the kids off the lawn when mowing and off the riding mowers we could greatly reduce the number of injuries each year.”

According to the IJ story, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that no one under the age of 16 should use a riding lawn mower and no one under the age of 12 should use a push mower. And based on the study results, Dr. Bishai recommends several safety precautions for mow time, including wearing goggles, long pants and closed-toe shoes, not mowing if you have a history of chest, back or joint pain, and not mowing the yard in high heat.

Seriously, where were these types of reports when I was a kid? Because I was forever at home during the peak of hot, humid Iowa summers, pushing the lawn mower through our big back yard with my twiggy arms, looking a sweaty fright and wishing for the sweet release of an air-conditioned basement.

You know you did the same thing; Dad tells you to please cut the grass tomorrow and you come back at him with a couple of numbers, usually the temperature, the percentage of humidity in the air or how many times you’ve almost died pushing the mower up the hill behind the garage. Then you start mowing crooked to prove you’re no good at it, but it turns out Dad doesn’t really care if all the lines are straight. 12 years later, you realize this is a lie and that Dad effectively tricked you into mowing straight again.

Alright. Now Johns Hopkins needs to do a study on the effects on children who shovel snow in harsh wintry conditions. There’s no hope now for my brother and I but I think we can still save future generations from near heatstroke and frostbite.

Have a good weekend everyone, and be careful mowing this weekend.

I could squeeze out about ten blog posts for you today, but sadly my copywriting duties include more than just blogging.

That said, I wanted to do a short follow up to the web writing post from a few weeks back, especially after reading this bit from Jakob Nielson.

In a new eyetracking study, it was found that most web users scan pages in a F-shaped manner, horizontally reading the upper most part of the content, then moving down a couple paragraphs and to read a second (shorter) horizontal passage. Finally, the user reads the left side of the page in a vertical movement.

Wow, Megan. Big hairy deal, you say.

Back up the gravy train friends, because it is a big hairy deal.

Why? Well, if you’re putting content on your web site to attract insurance shoppers (which, ahem, you should be), you’ll want to know how people are viewing your page. And because the implications of the Nielson’s new eyetracking study point to the following:

• most visitors won’t read your content word for word, especially when they’re doing a quick comparison between you and your competitor
• your most pertinent information needs to come across in the first two paragraphs to keep the visitor on the page
• subheadings, increased line spacing and bullet points will draw the readers eye to the left-hand side of the page to complement the “F” reading behavior

Of course, not all visitors will read your content in this manner, but the study further emphasizes the importance of concise writing, bulleted lists and the use of white space to highlight your most important points and keep your visitors from becoming overwhelmed by text.

Check out the study here and other web writing tips from Jakob Nielson here.

I know it’s only Wednesday, but this peculiar posting can’t wait until Friday.

Autoblog.com offered this pun-intended headline this morning:

Wham! George Michael seen plowing into parked cars with Range Rover

Apparently Mr. Michael took out three parked cars in North London earlier this week with his SUV…all before 8:00 in the morning. He then abandoned his car on the side of the road and fled the scene. According to Autoblog, the singer could face up to six months in prison for failing to stick around and providing his insurance information to authorities. Lovely, dear.

My guess is he’ll get dropped from his insurance company around renewal time, but I’m also willing to guess that he’s got enough cash to pay whatever a new insurer will charge him.

You’re not going to believe this, but George Michael’s Praying for Time just popped onto my Yahoo! LaunchCast Radio. What a happy coincidence!

Well…now that you know I listen to Wham! and old George Michael tunes, the readership of the InsureMe Agent Blog is probably going to drop off the face of the earth, eh?

Have a great Wednesday everyone. And you may want to consider putting the car in the garage tonight. You never know when an obscure, SUV-driving celebrity will put a world of hurt on your vehicle.

[Big hat tip to InsureMe's Justin Bregar for bringing this story to my attention.]