Leadership Council

ASSUREX UPDATE Ashley Kellerman, Kyle Simmons and Sam Olinger provided an update from the Assurex Operations conference they attended in June. Through the conference, they were able to learn about security practices, find other agencies to learn from in our EPIC transition and explore cultural and developmental tools used at other agencies. Sam Olinger presented on career pathing and development at Christensen Group. Sam recently shared the presentation with all the leaders at CG and you can expect an update from your manager on development opportunities in your area. *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Products & Service category: _Assurex: Engage and utilize benchmarking groups, attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with insurance agency thought leaders. _

ARDELLE UPDATE We discussed our nominees at the June Leadership meeting. We were thrilled with the amount of meaningful submissions and it was a difficult decision to make for the Leadership team. We can’t wait to celebrate all the nominees on the July 25 State of CG meeting. We will announce the winners during the meeting!   *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within People & Culture category: Launch a Service Recognition Incentive (to align with Sales Growth/Recognition incentives).

ASSUREX UPDATE Lynn Pettis and Tony Larson provided an update from the Assurex Private Client conference they attended in April. Through the conference, they were able to find a partner agency to assist with Florida placements, and resources available for difficult markets in California and Colorado.

Lynn & Tony will be sharing more specific and relevant information to the Personal Lines department.

This conference checked off two 2024 Initiatives! *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Market & Customers category: Find new markets in hard-to-place locations (FL, CA, CO, WY, TX). *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Products & Service category: _Assurex: Engage and utilize benchmarking groups, attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with insurance agency thought leaders. _

MOCK STATEMENT Are you going to receive your first statement on Wednesday or need a refresher on how to read it? Check out this knowledge center article: ESOP Mock Statement

Our goal is to recruit 6 or more producers a year. We reviewed the 3 producer hires this year. We have a few more producer candidates in the pipeline. We’re confident we’ll reach our 2024 goal by June. We are excited to have already welcomed these producers and apprentices in 2024: David Steenstra, Ralph Solis, and Mark Alt.

We’ll continue to explore candidates and remain opportunistic. As with every producer hire, we are carefully reviewing each candidate to ensure they fit with our service model and CG values.

*Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within People & Culture category:

‍

We spent most of the Leadership Council meeting discussing the single-system project. We received an update on the Applied Epic exploration from our project leaders, Kyle Simmons, Sarina Khariwala and Linda Jackson.

*Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Operations category:

What we’re doing: Currently completing our due diligence before deciding. 

‍

…If you’re still reading this, thank you. We’re open to feedback on these updates. Share your thoughts with anyone on Leadership Council. Are these hitting the mark? Are you wanting something else? Let us know. 

ASSUREX CONFERENCES Assurex hosted two conferences in March. Employee Benefits Leaders Conference was attended by Kelli Kaup and Eric Svobodny. The North America Leaders Conference was attended by Charlie Christensen.

Kelli, Eric and Charlie provided a recap of their learnings and a-ha moments from the conferences. Our biggest takeaways included:

• Assurex is a network of talented individuals and agencies that are growth-focused and willing to share their expertise.
• The conferences are limited to a small group of attendees, mostly from brokers. Conferences are focused on building connections and fostering relationships to call on when you need thought partners. Each person walked away with a few folks they’ll call on to talk about Operations, Sales, Technology, etc.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a continued hot topic. Some brokers shared how AI is creating workflow efficiencies and automating the manual work. A key point for us “AI won’t eliminate the broker. But brokers who don’t use AI will become eliminated.”

*The above topic aligns to a 2024 Initiative within Products & Service category: Assurex: Engage and utilize benchmarking groups, attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with insurance agency thought leaders.

What we’re doing: We will send 1-3 people to each Assurex conference. People are chosen based on their role and expertise. These folks will make connections with other Assurex leaders and identify opportunities for CG.

After each conference, they will report out their learning to the Leadership Council. This information will allow us to understand the best ways to engage with Assurex and ensure we’re reaping the benefits of this network.

‍

10 YEAR VISION DOCUMENT & 2024 INITIATIVES We discussed our cadence to review the 2024 Initiatives progress, and Leadership Team owners for each initiative. You can expect to hear updates on department-specific initiatives during your all-department meetings (i.e. State of P&C, State of PLD, EB Department Meeting). In July, we’ll share overall updates at the State of CG.

‍

RECOGNITION We mentioned at February’s State of CG that we were working on a Recognition program for all non-sales employees. We continued our work on this project and decided on a program that we’re excited about. There are a few details to coordinate before we can announce and launch. Expect news in April!

*The above topic aligns to a 2024 Initiative within People & Culture category: Launch a Service Recognition Incentive (to align with Sales Growth/Recognition Incentives).

What we’re doing: Making something happen!

‍

SYSTEM UPDATE We discussed general thoughts from the Applied Epic demos conducted earlier this month. We paused the conversation and review on the system until April. This allows our project leaders, Kyle Simmons, Sarina Khariwala and Linda Jackson time to roll-up all department feedback into a final proposal. We’ll discuss in April’s Leadership Meeting.

*The above topic aligns to a 2024 Initiative within Operations category: Go/No Go on single-system - 5/1. If "Go," select and begin implementation.

What we’re doing: Currently completing our due diligence before deciding.    

…If you’re still reading this, thank you. We’re open to feedback on these updates. Share your thoughts with anyone on Leadership Council. Are these hitting the mark? Are you wanting something else? Let us know. 

We discussed the kick off to the "Single System" project. Our goal is to have every department, save QP, all working from one system (CL, PL, EB, Producers, Accounting, Life). Qualified Plans (401k) will remain outside of the system to ensure their client data, which is highly regulated by the SEC, is outside of our system and domain. That said, we do plan to track which clients are 401(k) clients, so we can run better reporting and find cross-sell opportunities from this single system.

‍

This initiative marks a significant step in our long term commitment to enhancing our operational efficiency and ensuring we have the best tools in place to support our work.

‍

Over the next two months, we will be conducting an in-depth comparison of the systems offered by two leading companies in our industry: Vertafore and Applied. Our aim is to perform an "apples to apples" comparison of these platforms. This is a comprehensive evaluation to determine which system best meets the needs of our entire company.

‍

The outcome of this project will play a crucial role in shaping our long-term operational capabilities and, ultimately, our success.

‍

We reviewed a draft of our 10-year vision and the 2024 initiatives that were provided by managers and teams. Thanks for everyone who has shared ideas! We will be sharing the final copy of the document at our February 29 State of CG meeting.

‍

We believe recognition is important to motivating individuals and rewarding our team for work well done. We talked about ways we could increase recognition across the company. We brainstormed ideas and decided to continue the conversation in the next month.