INDEPENDENT AGENTS: LOCAL HEROES

As an independent insurance agent, you wear two hats: Knowledgeable professional and member of your local community.

‘THAT LYING LIZARD’ “Why would you want to buy insurance from a lizard – especially a lizard with a British accent?
“Don’t get me wrong. I like the telephone and the Internet as much as the next guy. I’m really glad that Alexander Graham Bell and Al Gore teamed up to invent those devices; they’re such helpful tools. But there are some things I just don’t do over a fiber optic line.
“First and foremost, I don’t believe anything I hear from telemarketers or anything I read on the Internet. These nameless, faceless little people with their hidden agendas sit in their dark little rooms with Little Debbie crumbs on their Guns & Roses t-shirts and happily blast away at America.

“Second, I don’t shop over the telephone or the Internet. Before I purchase anything, I want to look at it, touch it, smell it, try it on, kick its tires, and make sure that it doesn’t clash with my freckles – which brings me back to that stupid lizard.

OF LOCALS AND LIZARDS
“We’ve got some outstanding insurance companies and many award-winning agents right here at home. They live here, raise their families here, buy their groceries and vehicles here, send their kids to school here, pay their taxes.

“The last time I checked, that smart-butt lizard has never paid a penny in local taxes. He doesn’t have an office and a secretary down the street, doesn’t sit beside you in church, doesn’t belong to the Lions or Rotary clubs, and doesn’t bring you a colorful new calendar every December.

THAT IMPERSONAL TOUCH
“Besides that, if you happen to get run over by a large van or have a tree fall on your house do you honestly think you can call that lizard and he’s going to rush over and help you? If so, you’re dumber than the lizard. He’s going to give you a number to call that leads to a never-ending series of automated messages. You’ll spend the rest of your life on the telephone and never get to talk to a single human being – not even the lizard’s sister-in-law, who is probably the company receptionist

POWER TO THE MIDDLE MAN
“I’ve heard the claim that telephone and Internet commerce saves consumers money by eliminating the ‘middleman.’ But if we keep eliminating all the middlemen, pretty soon we’ll all be in the soup line. One by one, we’re actually eliminating ourselves from our own marketplace. And that’s true, not only for insurance-selling reptiles, but also for many other goods and services.

CAST YOUR BREAD
“Remember this: The investment you make by supporting your friends and neighbors here at home will return to you many times over. It will strengthen our economy. And even if it’s a couple of dollars higher up front, consider that a great investment in your family’s future. So next time that Lizard tells you that you can spend less on your car insurance if you’ll just mail him a check to New Jersey or Los Angeles, ask him if he’s going to sponsor your son’s Little League baseball team next year. Or buy an ad in the school yearbook. Or even help you drag the limbs off your roof.
“And let me know what the little green idiot says.”

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
As an independent agent, you’re a local hero who can provide protection for the assets of your clients and prospect. You can meet those needs through real-time online access to a worldwide array of products and services.