From Your President

From Your President Leading Our Association into a New Decade

First and foremost, I want to thank you for the opportunity you have given me to lead OUR Association. When I look at the pictures on the wall of our Past Presidents I’m truly humbled to have my name added to that list of great leaders. I promise to serve you to the best of my ability and look forward to hearing your ideas on how we can better serve you, our membership.

I want to thank Joe Hunt for the job he did last year transitioning our staff leadership from Chuck to Ashley. It was a great opportunity to look at things from top to bottom and evaluate all aspects of the Association. I’m happy to report that after conducting our review that our Association was in great shape and no major changes were needed. Ashley has made some great additions to our staff and they are ready to move us to the next level in the way we serve our membership.

I also want to congratulate Lou Moran III on his election to the Executive Committee of the National IIABA Board and his 7-year commitment to the Big "I" as he moves through the chairs on his way to becoming the first national president from the Great State of Tennessee. I have had the honor and pleasure of serving with Lou for several years now and his commitment to you and the independent agency system is second to none. The next time you see Lou please thank him for his service.

New Staff Members Provide Resources

One of the key hires Ashley made was to add Jim Layman, J.D. to lead our legislative affairs. I'm happy to report that Jim is doing an outstanding job. Our PAC contributions are higher than ever, and his legislative affairs town hall meetings were a huge success. Please make plans to attend our Legislative Reception on February 4 at the Hermitage Hotel. It is a great opportunity to meet with and see our legislators and thank them for the great job they are doing. If there are any issues on the legislative front you would like to see addressed please reach out to Jim, he is more than happy to hear from agents on issues that are important to them. I’d also like to welcome Nick Weber to the Insurors staff filling the new role of Member Engagement Specialist. In his new role Nick will be actively recruiting new members as well as making sure our current members are aware of the many offerings the Association has available to maximize their value.

Improvements to Website & Benefits

We are also in the process of updating the Insurors website to make it more user friendly. One of the additions I’m particularly excited about is the education portal. I hear from a lot of members that are frustrated with trying to educate new hires as well as existing employees. This new portal will allow the user to click on a link for a specific role – i.e. a new personal lines account manager position – and a list will appear of classes for the new employee in the order in which they should be taken. The same options will be available for most other positions within your agencies as well.

A couple of new member benefits that should be rolling out first quarter are IntellAgents and Independent Market Solutions (IMS). IntellAgents is a new industry specific, analytics driven organization. The goal being to provide you with more actionable insights – based on data – than will enable you to make more informed business decisions. IMS is a marketing platform members can access if they are having difficulty with markets for certain classes of business or if they are in a situation where they may have limited availability for their personal lines or small commercial insurance needs. Agents will have their own producer codes and will own the business placed with IMS.

As you can see there’s a lot of things going on within your Association and we are constantly looking for ways to help our agents be better at what we do – aiding our communities and providing an invaluable service to our clients. Again, thank you for the opportunity you have given me to serve as your president. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously, and I want to hear from you on issues that are important to you and your agency. This is our Association. u

The Tennessee Insuror "...w e a r e c o n s t a n t l y looking for ways to help o u r a g e nt s be better at what we do – aiding our communities...”

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