Fall is my favorite time of year, mostly because of the end-of-October extravaganza of Halloween. What's not to like? Horror movies, bags of candy and all sorts of costumes rule the day.
When it comes to costumes, though, it's sometimes hard to be creative, whether you're outfitting your kids or yourself. The preteen set usually comes equipped with the flavor of the moment cartoon character, while the older ones settle for “Saw” masks (for males) and sexy-whatever for girls. (You can fill in the blanks here: Sexy nurse. Sexy devil. Sexy angel. Sexy underwriter. Sexy claims adjuster.) All too often, on Halloween as in real life, it's easier to just cut eyeholes in a sheet and call it a ghost than it is to come up with something that's really original. But if you want to stand out, the canned Power Ranger costumers and sexy-whatevers just won't do it.
While this month's issue won't show you the most original Halloween costumes, we do take a look at some original ways you can hone your creative, competitive edge to get attention and business. Our lead story examines how captives, a tried-and-true insurance alternative for big businesses in a hard market, are getting a new lease on life as a creative, cost-saving way to insure even small to midsized businesses in today's crazy economy.
Success for today's agency is all about anticipating customer needs and using technology to reach them and help solve their problems. But what if the same technology that makes their lives easier is also exposing them to loss? Our feature on trucking and ocean marine sheds light on how thefts are facilitated by the same technology that's making cargo transport easier than ever–and how smart agents can use this knowledge to advise and consult their transportation customers.
And speaking of Halloween frights, regular columnist Chris Amrhein examines bedbugs and the standard insurance form. Knowing what to tell your concerned customers about this growing problem can certainly set you apart from your competitors.
I recently had the pleasure of participating in the first-ever insurance Twitter chat, hosted by formal Twittercast (#INSchat on Twitter) for the insurance industry, hosted by Insurance Marketing HQ , the social media community set up by Nick Brown of Astonish Results. Talk about creative–more than 60 agency and company participants shared more than 500 tweets in real time on how they were using social media to advance their brands and ultimately drum up new business. Ideas ranged from sponsoring photo contests and charity events on Facebook to advice on how to begin and best use social media.
With ideas like these in the mix, there's no reason why your agency should settle for a sheet with eyeholes. Get creative, have fun and stand out in a crowd!
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
