Banks are complicated, highly regulated entities, and insuring them can be quite a challenge. It's a challenge I enjoy, however. Indeed, I've been helping such financial institutions manage their risks for 30 years, often in connection with their own associations. In the last three years, I've been catering to banks through my own agency, Independent Bankers Insurance Services. In this article, I'll explain how we go about unlocking business from banks.

I started my career in life insurance, with Security Mutual of Lincoln, Neb. Shortly after, however, I went to work for a person who sold credit insurance for banks and other risks. In time, we contracted with the Montana Bankers Association to provide their members not only credit insurance but also such products as D&O insurance and financial institution bonds.

Since then, I've continued to work closely with bank associations, often in agencies owned by them. The last one was owned by the California Bankers Association. I resigned from the agency in 2002, when it was sold to an investor group, and started Independent Bankers Insurance Services with my wife, the CBA agency's manager. We knew many of the executives at Western Independent Bankers Association, which represents banks in 12 states. Not long after we started our own agency, they endorsed us as their exclusive marketer of bank insurance products.