Who’s Hiding in Your Agency?

​What have you done lately to grow your team members?The rest of America seems to have caught up with an issue we've had for a while - the need for more fantastic team members in our agencies. Even industry newbies with great attitudes that we could train would be welcome additions. We're all working on that (that'll be another post). But many agencies are falling short on something else they can control right now. That's empowering, training, and growing within.Yes, the need for CE naturally keeps at least our licensed staffers growing in some way every year. But are you growing operational skills? Are you…

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DFS Fines an Insurance Producer for Cybersecurity Violations … But Not One Like You

​In the five and a half years since the New York State Department of Financial Services implemented its Cybersecurity Requirements For Financial Services Companies​ regulation, I had yet to hear of an insurance producer being penalized for violations. Until this week. As is my habit, I checked the department's website first thing Monday morning and found a news release they had issued last Friday, June 24. The release announced a $5 million penalty against an insurance producer for violations of the regulation. I should mention that this wasn't any ordinary insurance producer. It was Carnival Cruise Line, the high-profile provider of ocean cruises whose annual revenue shrank to…

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Insurance

Ketanji Brown Jackson today took the oaths of office to become the newest associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She succeeds Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she once served as a clerk. I always find it interesting, when a Supreme Court justice enters or exits (Scalia, Ginsburg) the stage, to investigate how they have ruled on cases that might be of concern to insurance carriers, agents or brokers. Presidents tend to pluck jurists from the federal courts when they nominate Supreme Court justices. Insurance, however, is regulated primarily at the state government level. For that reason, I don't often find a lot when…

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