C-Level executives obtain most of their purchasing information on line

If your business isn't advertising on line, you may be losing access to the key decision makers in today's businesses: C-level executives such as CEOs, CROs, CFOs, and CLOs.

Forbes recently completed a blind survey of 286 C-level executives and found they spend an average of 16 hours weekly on the Web, not including using e-mail. 64 percent of the respondents viewed eight or more Websites per month looking for business and financial information.

Compared to the time the C-execs spent on other resources,if you aren't making use of web advertising, you may be missing your audience.

Here is the time C-execs spent viewing other medium:

• TV 8.6 hours per week
• Magazines 6.6 hours per week
• Newspapers 6.6 hours per week
• Radio 5.7 hours per week

Should you rethink your advertising dollars? If so, please call to view our innovative HTML advertising campaigns or White Papers that have helped drive traffic to our clients' sites. We have helped dozens of financial services companies build a strong web presence. We would love to help you deliver a crisp, clear message that reaches your intended audience at a rate that is amazingly affordable.

Call (602) 870-3230 for a rapid response.

Upcoming speaking engagement

Nancy Germond will address the Loss Executives Association's (LEA) 77th Spring Meeting and Educational Conference in Portland, Main, on June 12, 2008. Her session, "Brain Drain in the Insurance Industry," provides proactive tips for managing, retaining and training insurance industry personnel. With more than one quarter of the U.S. population eligible to retire in the next few years, this topic is critical to the strategic management of insurance organizations.

The LEA is the premier source of education and training of property claims managers nationwide.

Nancy's articles appear in industry trade journals and her weekly column, "Risk Management for the 21st Century," appears on Allbusiness.com.

Selling workers' compensation coverage

Tired of competing solely on price? Then watch this video and learn:

1) An overview of experience rating
2) Nine key concepts of experience rating that employers need to understand
3) The process of using ModMaster to compute a mod
4) Interpreting ModMaster reports
5) Communicating the 9 key concepts using ModMaster reports, and
6) Taking the next step by introducing WorkCompEdge

RiskList helps businesses manage risk

Do you want free advice from some of the world's top risk managers? Then join RiskList, a moderated risk management discussion forum.

Click to join RiskList

Turn your employees into headhunters

Last week I attended a four-day Society of Insurance Trainers & Educators conference. The class size was small, about eight, but what was exciting was the level of young talent in the training.

If we are reading the trade journals, we know that our industry talent is disappearing, in part due to the current and pending Baby Boomer retirements, and in part because of our seeming inability as an industry to attract new candidates. When was the last time you heard a young person, when asked his or her career plans, say, "I'm planning an exciting career in insurance!"

But the reality is, the insurance industry offers exciting career opportunities. Here are just a few of the advantages I've found during my two-decade plus career:

• Wonderful and supportive coworkers.
• Ample training opportunities, whether at the workplace or self-directed.
• Interesting dilemmas to solve, whether during my years in claims, my years working with agents and MGAs, or my years in risk management.
• A fairly lucrative wage.

But as an industry, we don't convey these benefits. As I watched the younger participants at this training workshop, I kept thinking, "Some headhunter is missing a great opportunity here." I would have hired any of the participants in a heartbeat.

If you are having trouble attracting great talent, why not turn your employees into headhunters? As they attend seminars and networking events, ask them to exchange business cards with people they think would be a fit for your company.

While these attendees may not be in the job market right now and you may not even have a current opening, a year down the road, with growth, mergers and acquisitions and downsizing, the story may be entirely different.

When I talk with other young people, particularly women, I encourage them to think about insurance as a career path. You may want to do the same.

Performance appraisals can limit liablility

I've been very busy with my new column in Allbusiness.com.

Click here to read the latest entry.

Public sector risk managers do more with less

If you want to see risk managers who really know how to do more with less, spend a few days with public agency risk managers as I recently did in Anaheim, California. About a thousand risk managers and human resources officers, third-party administrators and those impacted by risk gathered at the Public Agency Risk Manager's Conference (PARMA) last week to discuss trends in public sector risk management.

I heard many great speakers, but the one who really stood out was Gordon Graham, a former police officer and safety consultant. He spoke about Admiral Rickover's 7 Rules of Safety Success, which I turned into a column in Risk Management for the 21st Century on http://www.allbusiness.com/. To read the column, click here.

Public sector risk managers are the unsung heroes of their agencies because they consistently figure out ways to manage the myriad problems public entities face as they try to provide services to an increasingly demanding public.

Should your organization hire a risk manager?

View my latest column in Allbusiness.com.

Your company isn't immune to employee theft

Read my latest column in Allbusiness.com.

Are auto accidents driving your losses?

Read my latest column in Allbusiness.com.

Use the rifle approach to safety

View my most recent column in Allbusiness.com.

New book on risk management a must read

Because I believe in insurance and risk management education, I'm posting a review from claims writer and pundit Kevin Quinley's website praising a new book by insurance professional Rick Vassar.

"Olly olly oxen free! Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Reviewed by Kevin Quinley

Hide! Here Comes the Insurance Guy

by Rick Vassar, iUniverse, 2006, 196 pp., $17.95

Somebody once said that a New York accent was the most effective form of birth control known to man. Others might nominate as an effective contraceptive any tendency to talk about insurance… or risk management, for that matter.

Author, risk manager and consultant Rick Vassar has penned an illuminating primer on insurance and risk management in his book, "Hide! Here Comes the Insurance Guy." The title is a take-off on the notion that, for most people, meeting with an insurance person or discussing coverage is as much fun as a root canal or proctological exam. The author – a CPCU and an ARM -- lives a dual existence. By day, he is a mild-mannered risk manager for a company in the Washington D.C. area. In his spare time, he writes and consults on risk management topics (check out vassargroup). Vassar tries (successfully) to cushion the blow and counter the stereotype by presenting insurance and risk management principles in a straightforward way that can profit any business professional.

Part of his theme is that most companies have risks that are overseen by someone whose title is not "Risk Manager." Most companies do not have risk managers; you need to have a pretty big insurance budget to justify that as a full-time position. No company vies to be paying so much in insurance premium that they spotlight the problem by having a full-time individual to tend to it. Nevertheless, all companies have risks and need to manage it. For these risk managers without title or formal portfolio, Vassar's book – perhaps the best risk management book of the year even without that phrase in the title -- is an indispensable primer and guide. Reading and heeding his advice will save businesses much money, frustration and Excedrin-consumption.
Vassar divides his book into three main sections. Part I discusses business strategies to even the playing field between policyholders and insurance companies. Part II walks through the major basic forms of insurance coverage for most any business. Part III rounds out with a useful; glossary and index.

Vassar's target audience is likely not the Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000 risk pro who attends the annual RIMS Conference. There is no highfalutin discussion of enterprise risk management or views from 50,000 feet above ground level. If you are seeking information on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance or the risk management implications of global warming, look elsewhere. The storefront risk manager, though, will find a wellspring of effective tips and tricks between these covers.

Vassar's focus is practical and hands-on, leavened with a self-deprecating sense of humor. Did I say "humor"? Yes, though few comedy clubs are likely to feature an Open Mike night for insurance reps, Vassar takes the human antipathy toward insurance and turns it into a source of mirth and amusement. (Some end-of-chapter checklists would have been a nice addition to the text, but this is a minor quibble.)

So run -- but don't hide - and get your copy of "Hide! Here Comes the Insurance Guy." Get out from under the desk. Leave the closet and face your fears. Insurance and risk management may not be fun (though they are occasionally funny), but Rick Vassar has come as close to anyone in blending sharp wit with moneysaving risk management insights.