IMMS lessens market woes

Rough Notes, Apr 2003 by Klein, G Barry

Expanded Complete Markets feature helps IMMS members tap new markets

"Complete Markets was a big win for me," says Peter Anderson, owner and CEO of Anderson Insurance Services, located in Marshfield, Massachusetts. "We have a national account with $25 million in earthquake values, and we were coming up on our deadline. I couldn't find a market anywhere. I accessed the IMMS Complete Markets service and found a market that not only wrote the coverage, but it was highly competitive."

Anderson is one of some 3,000 agency members of Insurance Marketing & Management Service (IMMS) and with market conditions being what they are, CompleteMarkets is turning out to be a big win for IMMS as well. The 30-year old firm has members from every state, as well as Canada, and more than 250 members overseas. "The need for more markets is absolutely the number one concern of our members," says George Nordhaus, chairman of IMMS. "The problem surfaced with the hard market, of course, but it really got severe after 9/11," he adds.

IMMS responded to members' concerns by greatly expanding its CompleteMarkets program, originally created as a facility for markets (mostly wholesalers) to feature their specialties and get business from IMMS members. After 9/11, many of these folks lost their markets and/or reinsurance, and IMMS needed to find a better way of helping its members place business.

"CompleteMarkets provides a user-friendly, do-it-yourself service," explains Michael Solaroli, who directs the program. "We now have a four-- pronged approach," he adds. "The first is our original listing of markets, an A to Z list of more than 600 specialties. This is backed up by the second lega set of regional wholesalers that have agreed to give priority to our members." Solaroli and his fellow sales reps support the IMMS customer service representatives by helping members find markets for business. This customer contact gives the sales team real-world experience and examples that help them enhance the service and serve members more effectively. IMMS is growing at a rate of more than 100 new members per month.

Solaroli explains the third leg is unique. Since IMMS isn't a wholesaler, it focuses on helping agent-members place business, not on where the business goes. So, IMMS arranged with "competitors" to link with their site. Some of these are national wholesalers, such as InsuranceNoodle. Others are "who writes what" facilities, such as The Insurance Marketplace from The Rough Notes Company or National Marketing Services' programbusiness.com (PB).

Normally, a wholesaler doesn't send an agent to another wholesaler if it doesn't have a market. However, because IMMS/CompleteMarkets isn't a wholesaler, its interest is in finding a market for the inquiring agency. As a result, IMMS/CompleteMarkets regularly feeds business to various wholesalers. "We get a lot of business coming into programbusiness.com from IMMS," says Larry Neilson, chairman and co-owner (with his brother, Jeff) of PB and its parent company, National Marketing Services. The Neilsons have a long history with IMMS-they both started their insurance careers working for the company back in the 1970s.

The fourth leg and latest feature of CompleteMarkets, according to Nordhaus, is the "I Need a Market For..." bulletin board. It's a traditional bulletin board format that focuses purely on markets and has been getting a lot of use. "We get as many as 20 postings a day," Nordhaus says. The service encourages a sense of community among the members, he explains. The service also sends e-mail to selected markets if someone posts a risk that one of their known markets specializes in.

"We've really benefited from CompleteMarkets," says Jeris Wood, marketing manager for LassiterWare, a Florida agency that recently signed up. She says she got help for a trucking risk and an auto dealership.

Long-time industry observer

Nordhaus started in the insurance industry after graduating from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, by joining the Insurors of Tennessee (an agents' association) as executive director. He moved on to the Indiana Association of Insurance Agents in a comparable position. He started Insurors Press in Indiana, then moved the company to Santa Monica, California.

In 1972, after selling Insurors Press, Nordhaus started Insurance Marketing Services (IMS), as it was called then. George's brother Jack came on board five years later. That was the period when direct writers were starting to make major inroads into what previously had been the exclusive domain of independent agents. George Nordhaus hit the road, big time. For the better part of the next two decades, he crisscrossed the country, keynoting various agency conventions, running his own conventions, and generally exhorting independent agents to get off their duff and sell.

Along the way, George started interviewing successful agents who were willing to share their stories. IMMS member agents would get at least two tapes a month, and sometimes more. "I have no idea how many tapes we made over the years," he muses, "but it was a lot."