Chris Amrhein, like most true believers in insurance, stumbled upon this business accidentally; specifically, after graduating from college and needing a job.
After beginning in this business as a life-health agent, he graduated to property-casualty sales where he first met the greatest mine of comedy material extant today, the ISO forms. Following several years as a producer and independent agency manager/owner, Chris has spent many years as a full-time educator/VP-Education for the Florida Association of Insurance Agents and VP-Education for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. Those years found him traveling about the country teaching seminars on everything from agency management to the claims made CGL. It has also taught him the absolute truth of Jimmy Buffet's famous observation about those who make a career of the property-casualty business: "If we weren't all crazy we would go insane."
Chris is now a speaker, consultant, seminar leader and training developer.
Current Industry Activities:
o Member, CPCU Advisory Committee
o Member, Accredited Adviser in Insurance (AAI) Advisory Committee. (1987-1991) (1993 to present)
o Primary Author (AAI textbooks):
§ Foundations of Insurance Production – Personal Insurance
§ Multiple-Lines Insurance Production – Commercial Liability Insurance
§ Agency Operations and Sales Management – Principles of Agency Management
o Monthly columnist (1993-present) - "Policy Issues" - American Agent & Broker Magazine.
o Faculty member: IIABA’s Virtual University; Society of CIC James K. Ruble Seminars
o Contributing author, ARM 54
o Developer of “Street Level Ethics” Program for AICPCU/IIA
Programs: (Many programs qualify for CE, contact us for details)
1) Best Practices Greatest Hits; or Top Ten Ways Best Practices Agencies are Kicking Your Butt
Sure, it’s a tough market. The economy isn’t great, competition is fierce, clients aren’t happy, and carriers can’t seem to get enough business to keep them happy.
So what else is new? It seems in whatever marketplace, in any location, at any revenue level, there are always those agencies that, instead of sinking beneath the flood, simply float higher with the tide. What do they know you don’t? What are they doing you aren’t?
Based upon the annually updated IIABA Best Practices program findings, this seminar will give you the top real reasons successful agencies are not only surviving but growing. How do they seem to get so lucky? How do they build strong relationships with their carriers? Where do they find (and how do they keep) their best employees? And why do they have clients instead of customers?
So if you want to stop getting your butt kicked, and start kicking back (as well as pick up a few CE credits along the way), sign up now! This isn’t just theory or the latest management fad. Learn what real agencies are doing in the real world to make real money.
2) Building A Customer Centric Organization
Truly effective customer service isn’t just learning how to deal with difficult people, answer the phone by the third ring, and smile even when irritated. It’s about creating an agency environment centered upon the customer, from the top management level. Learn how many agencies defeat any chance of success with agency procedures and policies that torpedo the staff’s ability to deliver truly outstanding service. Then see how to avoid their mistakes (and fate) within your own organization.
3) Bloodlines and Birthdates: Gen X, Families and the Future of Your Insurance Agency
They are millions strong, and solidly underway in establishing careers and changing society. Yet how well do you understand the current and future impact of Generation X on your agency? And what further complications arise if the Xers you are struggling to understand are members of your own family and the potential future of your organization? Focused upon internal agency growth, perpetuation and leadership, this seminar provides a framework for understanding the overall generational traits shared by Xers, the possibilities (and challenges) these traits bring to your agency, and how understanding and embracing the value brought by this generation can ensure agency success far into the future.
4) Six Ways to Get Sued and How to Avoid Them (E&O)
There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only six ways to get sued for insurance agent's E&O. (OK, maybe seven, but the last one is a bonus!) This seminar will not only reveal these mysterious six ways (HINT: think Wizard of Oz and Cool Hand Luke), but also the key methods for making sure your agency never falls prey to their evils. It's safe to say you may never have attended an E&O seminar quite like this. Come, enjoy, and learn.
5) Planning and Goal Setting for Producers
As a wise sage once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” Far too many producers are so focused on the next sale, they have no idea the path to failure may be paved with sales that should never have been made. Knowing the difference between goal-oriented activities and merely “running like mad but getting nowhere” is the heart of this seminar. Included are steps to effective planning, goal-setting and priority management, all illustrated with producer-specific examples.
6) Top Ten Deal Closers You Can Use Tomorrow
In this world of “consultative” and “relationship” selling, it’s easy to overlook one key fact: the difference between successful producers and failures is knowing the difference between merely building relationships and making the sale. What are the most common barriers to the client saying “yes” (and writing a check) and how can they be overcome? (HINT: They are mostly in the producer’s head.) What can a producer learn from the “secret” of appliance repairmen everywhere? This seminar will clearly illustrate how thin the line between success and failure in selling can be, and how to be sure you stay on the “success” side!
7) Sixth Sense PL -- I See Dead Accounts
“To paraphrase an old lawyer joke: "What do you call having written both the auto and the homeowners on a given PL account? CORRECT ANSWER: A good start!" Far too many independent agencies evidently think the answer is "a well-rounded account". And that must be the reason they often settle for writing less than 30% of the possible PL coverages on a given account - and blindly leaving a huge amount of coverage on the table! And in the tradition of "Where's Waldo?", this presentation will help you discover there are at least 5 (and possibly as many as 9) coverages needed by typical personal lines accounts - without counting the auto or homeowners! Just like that kid in the movie, you'll learn to see what others don't. Except in this case, you'll be bringing your accounts to life. The only thing dying will be your E&O exposure.
8) Street Level Ethics
It often appears that the majority of what passes for “ethics training” is having little or no effect on individual or corporate behaviors. Case in point: Enron, which has become the poster child for lack of ethical behavior, had an extensive ethics program in place, evidently to little effect. Perhaps this is due to the fact that majority of ethics courses fall into two basic camps: those that are primarily morality essays, and those that are basically an academic exercise. Both have key flaws.
“Street Level Ethics” takes a different approach. Originally developed by me for the American Institute for CPCU, these materials are not intended to be the final word on creating ethical behavior in insurance practitioners, but rather to serve as an introduction to the “street level” application of what are often seen as esoteric topics. The main objective is to lead the workshop participants to start “wading into the pool” of what constitutes an ethical dilemma. Realistic case studies are included for analysis. The intent is to avoid two extremes common to the subject: (1) turning the subject into an “intellectual” philosophical discussion, littered with fifty-dollar words such as “teleological”; or (2) creating a moral “firefight,” where all anyone gleans from the arguments is that the person who disagrees with me “is so lacking in morals his or her licenses should be pulled.”
The course objective is for each participant to confront the complexity of the issues, recognize the possibilities of multiple solutions, and then begin formulating a personal approach to choosing a valid ethical solution when confronted by such situations in their own daily activities. |