Courses are offered through a variety of modes
"The demands of the insurance profession, increasingly complex business challenges, technology changes and heightened expectations of our customers require a discipline of continuous life-long education. It is our job to make certain that our members are able to take advantage of the many educational programs offered through the AAMGA University."
--Russ Rado, CPCU, Education Director, AAMGA University
If there is one theme that is likely to be repeated during this year's annual AAMGA meeting, it is that managing general agents in today's market are very busy people. The current hard market that dominates today's property and casualty insurance industry is unprecedented. In addition, many of the younger members of AAMGA have never even seen a hard market before. Therefore, today's hard market is a learning process for just about everybody, and it is a learning process that is taking place at the same time that MGAs are being inundated with new submissions.
The AAMGA's Education Committee is very much aware of all of this, and it has taken steps to ease the process by which AAMGA members can obtain their continuing education credits and designations.
"The demands of the insurance profession, increasingly complex business challenges, technology changes and heightened expectations of our customers require a discipline of continuous life-long education," says Russ Rado, CPCU, education director, AAMGA University. "It is our job to make certain that our members are able to take advantage of the many educational programs offered through the AAMGA University. These programs include workshops offered as stand-alone programs, member-sponsored sessions, courses offered at our business meetings and, now, a series of online education programs."
Rado says that the online education programs, introduced at the most recent automation conference in Dallas, are intended to save AAMGA members both time and money. "With the busy schedules of today's MGAs, often there isn't enough time to travel to take education courses," he says. "In addition, many MGAs have found the need to use their money to hire more people to keep up with the hard market workload. Nevertheless, states require continuing education credits and MGAs want to obtain their designations--for individuals, the Certified Insurance Wholesaler (CIW) and the Certified Wholesale Insurance Specialist (CWIS); and for agencies, the Certified Managing General Agency (CMGA). Therefore, we have developed online courses that members can take at home or in their offices.
"For $149, AAMGAs can sign on and take all the continuing education courses they want," continues Rado. "Some states allow only a portion of CE credits to be taken online in a given year, but some states allow credits taken in one year to be carried over to the next."
In addition to the continuing education credit courses, the AAMGA is offering "systems" courses online, something also introduced at the recent automation conference. "This allows members to learn about different automation systems, such as Microsoft, Lotus and financial management," says Rado. "We didn't actually build these programs ourselves. We approached different vendors and told them what we wanted, and we looked carefully at what they had to offer. We also checked references and talked to people who had used their programs. We decided on Harrington Educational Technologies, based in Ithaca, New York, for the CE programs, and Seaside Software, based in North Carolina, for the systems programs. It should be remembered that these online programs are not intended to replace face-to-face educational programs. These new online programs are there to offer members an alternative."
Something else that is new, according to Rado, is the establishment of a new MGA school and a course in fundamentals of insurance. "These courses are for people who are relatively new to the industry or people who may be moving from the standard market to the surplus lines market. It's a sort of boot camp for those just coming into the surplus lines business," he says.
These new endeavors are being sponsored by Shand Morahan and the Essex Insurance Co., both which are providing the bulk of instructors in technology, underwriting, marketing, sales and communication.
Rado, himself, is on the lecture circuit. He is providing on-site classes, which he teaches, on management and leadership topics. "Historically, the courses offered by the AAMGA have been technical in nature. That has worked wonderfully. What I'd like to do is bring a whole new dimension to education at the University. I would like to bring the dimension of leadership and management into the curriculum."
In addition, this year's annual meeting (as always) will also feature educational seminars on issues that relate specifically to the current market, says Rado.
"What we do is strive to offer timely and relevant educational programs and forums," says Rado. "Our aim is to keep our members in the forefront of the industry. Educational programs that build educational capital and foster knowledge sharing become a primary resource for our continued existence and future growth." *
The AAMGA section articles appearing on pages 68 through 79 were written by Phil Zinkewicz, a New York-based insurance journalist.