What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ow many times have you asked that question of a young child, or maybe even a “matured” child… or maybe even of yourself? As a parent, and board of education president, I have had the opportunity to ask that question many a time to many a young person, and until recently I never would have thought of posing this question to a senior insurance executive. However, after speaking with a longtime friend of mine, Sharon Emek, we may now ask that question to almost anyone in this thing of ours, no matter how many years young they may be. Sharon Emek, Ph.D., has founded a unique firm, of which she is President and CEO, that places retired insurance workers in remote assignments with insurance firms around the country.

“WAHVE” (Work At Home Vintage Employees), as she has fondly named the firm, “Taps outsourcing demand…with a twist” states Dr. Emek.

According to Ms. Emek, “Outsourcing, business startups and hiring are alive and well in New York, judging by recent developments involving a local firm.” With that said, through her New York City-based startup firm, local agents and brokers who need additional full-time or part-time staffing, customer service, project and processing work, consulting and mentoring are finding it all right at WAHVE. In fact, the company is even hiring as it’s looking for experienced, over-55 insurance professionals— people who are phasing into retirement but who want to keep active and employed. WAHVE also serves to keep skills and experience in the industry, rather than letting them sit on the shelf. Using WAHVE, for example, a New York City and Long Island-based broker has hired a part-time worker to handle processing work. She works remotely from her home out of state and connects virtually to the broker’s agency management system. This arrangement means the broker saves the costs of benefits, hiring and training, and avoids adding to real estate and technology costs, which are significant in the New York metro area. The broker is Justin Foa, President of Foa & Son, who explained the concept:

“The insurance brokerage industry has a problem in that it’s a graying industry. A lot of talent has gone to Wall Street or other financial fields and consequently we don’t have a lot of young talent available. WAHVE is tapping into mature talent that’s sitting on the sidelines and making use of it in a financially attractive way for agency owners.”

A brokerage firm in Texas hired a “WAHVE” who lives and works in New York State. Yet another agency leader, John O’Brien of O’Brien Insurance, sees domestic outsourcing as a way to diversify his agency’s business profile: “We’ve been primarily a personal lines agency, and wanted to expand our commercial lines book in order to grow. We are using WAHVE to do this and it’s been terrific. Our WAHVE is helping us in rounding out clients by reviewing renewals, upselling to existing clients when she sees coverage is needed or is now available. We are very happy with how things are working.”

Ms. Emek, who has been active for many years in industry groups in the state and nationally, calls this “domestic outsourcing.” WAHVE, which appears to be the only such firm in the industry to offer this type of service, is Emek’s third startup: She founded an agency organization in 1998 that managed 38 agencies on an outsource basis using service center and internet technology and started The Emek Group in 1988, which became at the time one of the largest women-owned insurance agencies in the country. She’s also a partner at CBS Coverage Group and is an active participant with IIABNY, Tri-County Agents, and Trusted Choice/Big “I”. Sharon, along with myself, sits on the ACT and AUGIE committees and regularly attends, and very significantly contributes, to our meetings around the country.

The name “WAHVE”, if you haven’t noticed, is a deliberate play on words since it taps in to the baby boomer retirement wave. The firm, launched in 2010 with Sharon’s sweat equity and a cadre of wellknown private backers, is now approaching critical mass. The company has more than 30 clients around the country, including several in New York State. (In September, WAHVE teamed up with IIABNY [http://bit.ly/mBOpk4] to provide the member-only benefit of waiving the set-up-fee.)

Agencies or other insurance firms that retain WAHVE get a seasoned insurance professional, who works remotely on that firm’s particular back-office insurance knowledge processing needs. This can free up staff to focus on where the premiums come from: clients and prospects. It saves expenses of hiring, training, managing new staff and the cost of turnover. It doesn’t cost a lot to try it, and WAHVE gives you access to a large talent pool of highly qualified, trained, experienced insurance industry retirees across the country and fills a void in the staffing marketplace. The soft market for commercial lines pricing, slow economic growth, the changing demographics of the workforce, and technology advancements are all refreshing the industry’s awareness of outsourcing. “Every insurance firm today is pressured to provide more service for the same cost or the same service for less cost,” pointed out Emek. “For a number of needs, U.S.-based workers with institutional knowledge can be a good solution for back-office processing and customer service work.” In addition, says Ms. Emek, “At the same time, as I talk to agency principals in New York and around the country, they are pleasantly surprised how domestic outsourcing can help with a variety of needs, not just processing work. A remote worker can help them branch out into a new line of business, mentor workers with their industry experience, or take on a project that the regular staff does not have the time to do.” For additional information and to inquire if WAHVE may be a fit for your organization, please visit www.WAHVE.com Who knows, maybe we can be a WAHVE when we grow up! In the December 19th edition of the Insurance Advocate, my fellow journalist Jamie Deapo reported that agents needed to “do a better job helping existing employees to grow in their knowledge and capabilities in addition to making sure all the licensed staff met their CE requirements.” Nice job, Jaime, as if you teed up the launch (I sure do wish it was golf season here in the northeast!) of PIA’s first major new member benefit of 2012:

Licensing/CE Compliance Central—an online tool kit for producers to easily understand and comply with the ever changing rules and regulations with respect to continuing education. This useful new tool includes an interactive compliance calendar to help New York state agents identify the most advantageous time to maximize their CE credits as that state finalizes its conversion to birth-date based licensing this year. Agencies can even download several employees’ licensing calendars into an Excel document to more easily track the agency’s entire staff CE requirements.

Licensing/CE Compliance Central also includes important information for producers such as information about obtaining and maintaining an insurance license; rules and requirements for doing business in one’s home state and other states; reporting requirements; information on company appointments and terminations; surplus-line licensing; as well as quick access to state and other licensing authorities, with specific rules and regulations and CE requirements for specific products and areas of expertise, such as flood, long-term care and ethics. PIA also provides frequently asked questions and answers, and offers members instant access to its member-exclusive Industry Resource Center for more specific or personalized questions.

In the announcement PIA issued the first week of January, Diane Fowler, Executive Director of PIANY, said: “Producers continue to face a multitude of changes to their continuing education requirements, as each state has reacted to the federal goal of uniformity and reciprocity for producer licensing and other trends in the regulatory environment. A major change is the adoption of birth-date based licensing by many states, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York,” said Ms. Fowler. “PIA has long held a reputation for providing the highest quality education in formats that are easy and accessible to members. The Licensing/CE Compliance Central tool kit is a natural addition to that which we already offer PIA members. We know agents look to PIA when they think of quality education and tools to maintain their professional stature,” said Diane. “We are committed to meeting our members’ needs and to making sure professional, independent agents are easily able to meet all their licensing and continuing education requirements. We are excited to announce PIA’s Licensing/CE Compliance Central, because it will help us do that.” For additional information regarding this and other PIA benefits, please visit www.pia.org, and click on the appropriate state for your agency or carrier.

Well, that’s what’s happening around town, and next time we’ll be talking about a few conferences in the northeast that are heating up in the winter of 2012. Ciao for now!