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Meet the stars of the CSRs Smart, focused, and motivated, these winners raise the bar for their profession By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU Fifteen years ago, in recognition of the dedication, ability, and commitment exhibited by customer service representatives, The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research began to present the Outstanding CSR of the Year Award. Every year since then, a national award winner and four finalists have been honored. They are selected on the basis of their contributions to their agency and community and on the quality of their essays on a topic that relates to customer service. For 2006, the subject of the essay was “Three Great Ways for a CSR to Build Positive Relationships with Company Underwriters.” To be eligible to compete in the essay contest, a CSR must be nominated by letter from a colleague, supervisor, or agency principal, and then must furnish letters from two insurance business references (clients or colleagues). Nominees first compete on the state level; state winners are automatically entered in the national competition. At this level, four finalists and one national winner are chosen. The four finalists receive a gold and garnet pin; the national winner receives a gold and diamond pin and a $1,000 cash award; and the winner’s employer is given a scholarship to a National Alliance program. What’s more, the national winner’s name is inscribed on a sculpture that is on permanent display at National Alliance headquarters in Austin, Texas. The winners are ... For 2006, a panel of judges chose Sharnel Hawkins, CIC, CRM, AIS, CPCU, of Bratrud Middleton Insurance in Tacoma, Washington, as National Outstanding CSR of the Year. Hawkins, a 25-year veteran of the property/casualty business, is senior account manager in the construction unit of her agency’s commercial lines department. She has won both company and agency achievement awards, is an active member of her local CPCU chapter, and has been involved in such community endeavors as Relay for Life and Big Brothers/Big Sisters. In her essay, Hawkins emphasized the importance of knowing companies’ underwriting appetites, understanding their philosophies, and preparing complete submissions. “The underwriter is your customer,” she wrote. “Anything we do to make their job easier will afford us better return on our own requests.” In addition to Hawkins, four national finalists were selected: Lisa Folta, CRM, CIC, CISR, CRIS, ARM, account executive with RJF Agencies, Minneapolis; Tracey Hall, CIC, CISR, account executive at Karn Sitkins Payette Insurance Agency, Dearborn, Michigan; Karen Jergenson, CISR, CPIW, AIS, AU, special accounts executive with Howalt-McDowell Insurance, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Kimberly Shows, CIC, CPIW, CISR, commercial lines account manager at Fox-Everett, Inc., Jackson, Mississippi. As in the past, Rough Notes enjoyed the opportunity to talk with each of these top-performing professionals and to learn how their winning attitudes and stellar skills foster agency growth and keep clients competition-proof. This year, national award winner Sharnel Hawkins celebrates 25 years in the insurance business. After 20 years with the American Heritage Agency in Enumclaw, Washington, she joined Bratrud Middleton Insurance in 2002. She focuses on large commercial accounts, primarily construction contractors, and is the senior account administrator on a five-person team that works with the agency’s highest-volume producer. Bratrud Middleton Insurance was established in 1923 and specializes in construction-related risks, serving the Pacific Northwest. Another key niche market is assisted living facilities. The agency employs some 185 people and in addition to its Tacoma headquarters has offices in Bremerton, Olympia, and Longview. With an impressive array of professional designations, Hawkins has had the opportunity to become a producer, yet she has chosen to remain an account executive. “I’ve given some thought to going into producing, but I’m not a salesperson,” she says. “I’m more service oriented and detail oriented. I take ownership of my accounts, and I like what I do.” She continues, “I like the challenge, the constant change, and the fact that every account is different.” She reiterates her commitment to taking ownership of her accounts. “I develop a relationship with my clients that’s both personal and professional.” She’s equally committed to professional education, which she believes is essential. “You have to keep up with the new trends, and to me that’s both a challenge and an opportunity,” she says. Asked to describe a situation where she went the extra mile for a client, Hawkins says, “That’s what a good CSR does every day.” She has won the Safeco Insurance Achievement Award and is a five-time winner of her agency’s “Brat Award,” which recognizes outstanding performance. Hawkins is a member of Bratrud Middleton’s Strategic Business Planning committee for 2006 and serves on the committee to develop processes and guidelines for the agency’s commercial department procedures manual and training curriculum. In her essay, Hawkins pointed out several benefits of developing and maintaining solid relationships with company underwriters. “Our industry is based on customer service,” she wrote. “We need to view our underwriters as customers and do what we can to provide them with service beyond what they experience with other agents. We want to get their attention so they will respond favorably to our requests for quotes or information.” Also presenting…The runners-up
Given the depth of her commitment to creating and maintaining an open dialogue with company underwriters, it comes as no surprise that Lisa Folta earned her bachelor’s degree in communications. “One of the best ways to build positive relationships with your underwriters is with good communication skills,” she wrote in her essay. “CSRs need to communicate effectively verbally or in writing with their underwriters, because poor communication skills ruin relationships. . . . The ability to listen and respond is imperative. You should give your underwriters your full attention when they are speaking, so you will be able to adequately respond to them.” During her eight years in the agency business, Folta has worked to achieve ever higher levels of skill and knowledge. In addition to earning five professional designations, Folta holds both property/casualty and life/health licenses. As a commercial account executive at RJF Agencies, based in Minneapolis, Folta handles mid-sized to large accounts with a focus on construction; the CRIS designation she carries stands for Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist, a program offered by International Risk Management Institute (IRMI). RJF is a business insurance agency that serves primarily Minnesota and western Wisconsin, operates six offices, and has a staff of 171 employees. “I have a burning desire for professional growth,” Folta explains. “RJF really supports me with that, because it’s a learning organization. RJF requires us to have 40 hours of continuing education every year. Being a CSR has allowed me to expand my knowledge,” she continues. “I came in as a temp, and now I’m one of the senior account executives. I enjoy being able to share what I know with my coworkers as well as my clients.”
Tracey Hall began working as a door-to-door salesperson at age 15, and at 16 she received her high school diploma. Ever since then, she’s combined a quest for knowledge with a drive to succeed to create a respected career in the insurance business. After working for Michigan’s largest direct writer for two years, Hall joined Karn Sitkins Payette Insurance Agency of Dearborn, Michigan, in 2000 as an account executive in personal lines. KSP is an all-lines agency that has been serving the greater Detroit area for some 80 years and has offices in Dearborn and Wyandotte. “My entire insurance career has been in personal lines, and that’s where my heart is,” Hall says. “When my 10-year-old daughter asks what I do for a living, I tell her I help people by educating them to make better decisions about protecting their homes and autos.” Hall holds both property/casualty and life/health licenses and has earned the CIC and CISR designations; she’s the only person in her agency who is a CIC. As an account executive and licensed agent, she has both CSR responsibilities and sales goals. Hall has served on the Citizens Mutual Personal Lines CSR Advisory Council for the past five years and in 2004 received the Citizens Blue Ribbon Award as CSR of the Year. “Many of my accomplishments can be attributed to my employer, who provides us with a positive workplace that promotes growth and the highest quality of client service,” she says.
The three C’s—cooperation, commitment, and communication—have served Karen Jergenson well throughout her 25-year-plus insurance career. She joined Howalt-McDowell Insurance of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, almost 10 years ago, bringing with her some 10 years of experience as a company underwriter. As a special accounts executive, Jergenson deals with commercial accounts that generate up to $20,000 in premium; niche markets include contractors and retailers. In each of the past eight years, her department’s book of business has grown between 10% and 40% annually. Retention has exceeded 90% every year since 1998, and the new business growth goal has been exceeded in each of the last eight years. In addition to her four current designations, Jergenson is pursuing the AAI (Accredited Adviser in Insurance) designation offered by the American Institute for CPCU/Insurance Institute of America. Like all of Howalt-McDowell’s CSRs, Jergenson is a licensed agent. In addition to servicing the business written by the producer with whom she works, Jergenson has her own accounts and provides service to those clients as well. “I like what I do because I love the process of writing new business and helping meet people’s needs,” she says. “I work with customers who walk in and call in, and I enjoy finding out what they need. Every one of our customers is out there doing their best to build their business and make a living. I want to do as good a job for them as they’re trying to do for their customers,” Jergenson says.
Throughout her 13 years in the agency business, Kimberly Shows has invested considerable time and effort in cultivating relationships with company underwriters that are based on honesty, integrity, and open communication. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi coast last year, Shows says, those underwriters dug deep to help her agency, its employees, and its clients recover in the wake of the country’s biggest natural disaster. Shows is a commercial lines account manager for Fox-Everett, Inc., the largest independently owned agency in Mississippi. Based in Jackson, the agency also has offices in Gulfport and Pascagoula and maintains sales offices in Atlanta and Nashville, Tennessee. Shows works with a million-dollar producer whose niche is geophysical exploration. Shows wrote in her essay: “It takes much more than time to build a long-lasting relationship with a company underwriter … One of the many things I learned from Hurricane Katrina was that it made me grateful to have so many underwriters who stepped up and worked with us to ensure that our clients were taken care of and their needs met as soon as possible. Thankfully, due to our long-lasting relationships with our company underwriters, we were able to assist our clients in a much more proactive way than we may have been able to in the past.” Shows says what she enjoys most about being a CSR is “the opportunity to help people every day, and the diversity of what we do,” she says. “It’s never boring.” As for going the extra mile, Shows echoes Sharnel Hawkins. “It seems like going the extra mile is an everyday occurrence,” she observes. * |
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