Industry Panel Sees Education Collaboration As Key To Survival
"We need to not focus on the narrow things that separate us but on the larger areas that we have in common," said panelist Dennis Stork, president and CEO of the Life Underwriters Training Council. Stork likened industry-wide education collaboration to the benefits of the Eurodollar. "The public does not differentiate in its view of the insurance industry and when one sector fails to deliver, it affects us all. We need a unified front for the value of the agent and an educated sales force to provide that value."
The panelists agreed that collaboration is critical to maintaining a satisfied organizational membership. "The first step in this process is to find out what each other is doing that would fulfill the needs of our members," said panelist Cynthia Ziegler, senior vice president of continuing education for the CPCU Society. "We aren't going to be here if we don't serve our members."
Another crucial benefit of collaboration, the panelists noted, is increased customer satisfaction. "We need to be talking to each other from a defensive posture, if nothing else," said panelist Jay Einstein, chairman of the professional development committee at the National Association of Life Underwriters. "Our agents, like yours, all have customer relationships they want to be able to maintain."
The panelists noted that "the customer" is often the same person with a variety of insurance needs. "I can't be all things to all people—so I will send my clients on to an agent who can serve them better and hope that agent reciprocates," said Stork.
Being able to provide a choice of delivery methods is critical to meeting agents' diverse educational needs, the panelists agreed. "One-size-fits-all doesn't work anymore; certain students have certain needs. We need to make sure that we are offering choices," said panelist Christine Lewis, senior vice president of the American Institute for CPCU/Insurance Institute of America.
Technology has made meeting those needs a more flexible and cost-effective process. "The classroom is not dead—but it's very expensive," noted Ziegler. "We are looking at distance learning, for instance, as bringing education to those whom we would never have the resources to reach otherwise."
Panelists also remarked that a 'wag-the-dog' taint has made CE requirements tedious and negatively affected the way that agents view the value of continuing education.
"We need to do a better job at saying CE is the icing on the cake—but the cake is quality education that will help you to better serve your clients," said Stork. "We need educational standards and a unified campaign to make our numbers realize that their time in these courses is valuable."
The panelists agreed that the decreased costs of education resulting from industry collaboration might encourage agents to choose courses that enhance their business operations rather than simply meet requirements.
"If we remove price from the equation, agents will then make course choices based on necessity," said Lewis.
It was noted during the discussion that agent associations should embrace consolidation in any area in which united efforts would increase efficiency, cost-effectiveness and value. "If we don't work together, we'll be trying to develop skills that other organizations already have—and that's not efficient," said Lewis.
Lewis cited the globalization of financial services and the recent spate of company mergers as "economies of size" and noted that agent groups should be learning from the trend. "There are much more powerful forces at work beyond the interactions within our industry, and a microcosm of what is happening on the larger level is now being driven to agents."