While it is a personal decision for your customer to make, you can advise them of the pros and cons.

If your customer is involved in an accident and did not take the car rental insurance:

• They will have to pay their auto policy’s deductible.
• The rental car company will probably charge them a daily rental rate while the car is repaired. This will not be covered by the insurance company.

If your customer is involved in an accident  and they did pay for the rental company’s insurance:

• They won’t have a deductible.
• If they are involved in an accident, the claim is likely to not show up on their auto insurance policy (unless there is an injury).

There is also another great option available through American Express.  Car rental insurance through AMEX is a FLAT $24.95 per rental period, vs per Day by the Car Rental company.

Coverage includes:

1) reimbursement for damage to or theft of the Rental Auto and personal property, and

2) medical expenses and death and dismemberment benefits resulting from a Covered Accident. Coverage is worldwide.

What the Plan Covers
The $100,000 coverage level with a premium of $24.95 covers:

• Up to $100,000 of primary damage and theft coverage for the rental car.
• Up to $100,000 of Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) coverage.
• Up to $15,000 per person of excess coverage for Medical Expenses.
• Up to $5,000 per person of excess coverage for personal property, maximum of $10,000 for all.
• For Florida Residents, up to $15,000 per person of excess coverage for personal property, maximum of $25,000.

Check out the Amex website for more information.

You only have 90 days from the date that the person inquired in which you can call the lead or even follow up.  If you do not have a prior business relationship with the person or you are not able to establish a business relationship with them during those 90 days, calling them will result in a DNC violation.

Make no mistake, DNC violations are serious business. The DNC is regulated by the feds and violations can result in a fine of up to $16,000.

So, if you are purchasing insurance leads, how can you be certain that you are protected in case a company sells you an aged lead, passing it off as a real-time lead? The truth is that you can’t. To protect your insurance agency you will want to ensure that you have an agreement in place that indemnifies you.

If you have any questions regarding the DNC and insurance leads feel free to comment below. Our team of insurance experts are happy to answer your questions!

Let me also say that I am FAR from an expert on the subject and will probably forget a few things here. What I am sharing are my own personal experiences with struggling to stay focused, meet deadlines, and be as productive as I know I should be to be more successful. I have also struggled with the uneasy feeling and stress that comes with having too much to do and too little time. And, for the most part, I have overcome them (for the most part).

Alright, with those disclaimers out of the way, here we go,

1. Realize and acknowledge to yourself that you will never, I repeat never, accomplish everything in one day that you need to. Get comfortable with leaving your desk with work to do.
2. Set a start and stop time for working each day. Yes, you may own the business and don’t have “work hours.” No offense, but yes you do. You simply cannot work 24 hours a day, so you have work hours. Pick a time to start each day. Pick a time to end each day. Stick to them. You will accomplish much more when you are on deadlines.
3. Turn off the Toast. The little thing that pops up to alert you of new email is called “Toast.” It steals your time and focus. Turn it off!
4. Put family time, personal time, social time, etc. on your calendar. Schedule it. What’s more important to you: work or family and friends? If you said work, you are weird. Really, you are statistically in the 0.2% of Americans who say that. That 0.2% is also the same group that ends up with heart problems and no friends and die a lonely death at an early age (not confirmed, just assumed). To schedule the time with your friends and family,on your calendar and stick to it.
5. Make time for yourself. Yeah this is a repeat of #4. Get over it and continue to read. Make time (business time and “off-time”) for yourself and stick to it (notice a theme here, make times and stick to them!). Use this time for thinking big things, reading, casting vision for yourself and others, setting goals, relaxing, praying, exercising, whatever.
6. Turn your email off periodically. Really, turn it off. Is it on still now? I’ll wait. OK, all set? Good. Turn off your email for the majority of the day. It’s a distraction that needs to be avoided for 99% of the population (service-oriented people are excused and probably not reading this so who cares,back to those who are). Set three times (or four if email truly is like crack for you) ON YOUR CALENDAR (told ya it’s a theme) and check your email at those times. I do: first thing in the morning from about 8:30-9:30, Right before or after lunch (before if I am having a late lunch, after if I am having an early lunch) for about 45 minutes, and again from 4:15-4:45. I will do one last check at 5:20 which usually takes 5 minutes to see if anything is on fire, and that is it. In the meantime, I am not constantly distracted by emails coming and going and I can do them all at once.
7. The same goes for all the other crap that distracts you: Twitter, Facebook, etc. See, I have uncovered the secret to eliminating distractions, ELIMINATING THEM! Set times to check Twitter, Facebook, etc. just like email. Unless you are literally a social media professional, three times per day is more than enough.
8. Schedule breaks throughout the day. Wow this theme is probably getting old now, but really, schedule some short breaks during the day. Now I am not suggesting you make yourself get a hall pass to go to the bathroom, that’s just weird. But, aside from bathroom breaks, schedule breaks according to your needs. I prefer three or four 5 minute breaks during the day rather than longer ones, but you may prefer taking two 10-15 minute breaks. Schedule them and stick to them.
9. Write out a to-do list the night before for the following day. I will admit, I suck at this. Studies have shown that 15 minutes making a to-do list can save up to TWO HOURS the following day. Don’t make this an ongoing, never-ending list though. In fact, only put stuff on there you plan to do THAT DAY. You can keep another list for long-term projects. Odds are, for most of you, 6-10 things is the sweet spot. Some days it will be less. Some days more. It’s up to you to know your limits and what each project will require.
10. Schedule a once a month “Task Snowball Day.” What? Well I made this idea up using the Dave Ramsey “Debt Snowball” idea. Ramsey’s method for getting out of debt is to pay off your debts smallest to largest. There are all sorts of mathematical and psychological reasons why, but I won’t get into them now. A “Task Snowball Day” should be schedule monthly on a day when you have no pressing matters (meetings or major projects due). What you do simply is take your long-term project list and list them in the order it takes to do them, forgetting importance. Start with the shortest one then the next and so on. Usually on a day like this, I will get through 12-25 projects! At any point in time I may have 40-50 long-term projects/ideas on the table. And in ONE DAY I can eliminate 25-50% of them! That is encouraging and takes a load of my shoulders. Now my list is down to one sheet again!
11. Get more sleep. Do I even need to explain this? Good.
12. Exercise. Schedule this too. It’s important. If all you do is get 15 minutes each day, trust me, it helps! Even during the day, use your breaks to get up and move around. If you are on the phone, make sure you have a headset and walk around. If you are on your cell phone, go for a walk. Do a set of pushups or body weight squats or walk up and down the stairs for 2 minutes.
13. Eat Better. Duh. Post-donut sugar crash = unproductive. (says the man who had two donuts before staff meeting this morning, do as I say, not as I do.)
14. Clean your desk! One big change I made was removing everything on my desk that is in front of me except for one area next to my keyboard with a notepad and my to-do list. A vast empty space exists where clutter used to reign king. It’s refreshing.
15. Have separate work areas. For me, this was huge. I work at the computer on one desk and do everything non-computer at another desk (well folding table in my office). Now I don’t get distracted when I focusing on reading an article or writing a note.

Lastly, I would not try to do all of these things at once. Pick one, do that for a couple of weeks, then another one. Do some research on your own to look for ways. Read a book or two on the subject. I recommend Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” and “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.

I hope those tips help!

Dialers are all the rage for B2C businesses, and for good reason. When used properly, a dialer can quadruple the numbers of calls made in any given period of time and send efficiencies soaring. More blind dials always equals more sales, right? Wrong. What separates a great dialer from a mediocre dialer is the intelligence used to determine what insurance leads to call and when.

Enter Leads360, the #1 lead management company in the insurance industry and their new dialer, Dial-IQ. Dial-IQ automates dialing on your leads, giving you critical efficiency gains. But, the big difference is it uses intelligence from your sales process to call the right leads at the right time. Dial-IQ prioritizes every lead in your producers pipeline to first call leads that are more likely to convert into a sale. The data shows staggering results:

After implementing Leads360 Dial-IQ, agencies are:

- Converting 76.9% more leads
- Calling leads 35.7% more quickly
- Contacting 66.0% more leads

Click here to read the white paper results.

To that end, we are very excited to bring you a special promotion with our partner Leads360. To help you get started, we have arranged a very special offer for HometownQuotes agents: Until October 15, 2011, you can get Leads360 Dial-IQ FREE for 30 days and 5,000 free minutes!

Click here or visit Leads360.com/Hometownquotes to take advantage of this limited time offer.

If you have any questions about Leads360′s Dial-IQ, you can contact them at sales@leads360.com or call 888-856-0534.

The leaves, the chilly nights, the still warm days followed by an indescribable peace at dusk. Everything seems to slow down just a bit in the fall.

And it is indeed a great time to slow down somewhat, while also getting ready for a great 2012!

When I owned my insurance agency, fall was always the best time for planning, thinking, and goal setting. From marketing ideas to staff concerns to training employees, there seemed to be more time for these things in the fall,and I learned to use this time wisely.

Take some time to think big things. Think of ways to grow your agency, such as taking advantage of our Columbus Day Buy One Get One Free Insurance Lead Sale that we extended through the end of today.

It’s also a great time to think of ways to improve your work.

Enjoy the colors, the air, the rest, and perhaps even a little Halloween candy this month. The new year is creeping up on us. Finish this one strong and starting 2012 will be a breeze!

To Your Success,

Bob Klee, LUTCF
Co-Founder and CEO
HometownQuotes

As you sign up new customers and meet new insurance prospects, you should always give contacts the opportunity to opt-in to your enews. If they begin getting your emails and weren’t notified, they may flag your messages as SPAM and your future emails may not make it to their inbox.

Not sure what email distribution program to use? We recommend MailChimp, Emma or Constant Contact. Read more about them here. The great thing about a web-based email marketing solution is that there’s no software to install and you can easily track opens, clicks, opt-outs, etc.

Not sure what to write about? Ask your clients! Perhaps you create a question of the week where you answer various questions on a regular basis. Your head is already full of insurance knowledge, so ask your customers/prospects what concerns them and write about it!

Starting your enews is as simple as investing in an email marketing program, taking some time to write quality content and creating an email insurance enews distribution plan so you get in the habit of creating and distributing it. You may not see an overnight ROI, but over time, we’re certain this will help you close more business and generate more referrals.

In this TEDTalk, Seth Godin shares why, in today’s marketplace, you can’t afford to be boring. With all the things competing for our attention, the insurance businesses that take time to engage with their potential insurance customers in a meaningful way will come out on top.

In this presentation, Krista Dial (who is the personality behind HometownQuotes’ PR and social media) will walk you through setting up a Facebook fan page, explain the differences between Facebook profiles and pages and share strategies for building a strong base of raving fans for your insurance business.

Make sure you stick around for our popular Q&A session after the webinar. Insurance industry veteran Hunter Ingram will be on hand to answer questions and offer insight as an insurance agent and former agency owner.

We hope you won’t miss this opportunity to learn how social media offers valuable tactics for prospecting and retaining insurance clients.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Best Regards,
The HometownQuotes Team

1) Dig down to the real issue.
2) Focus on what you can fix.
3) Kindly and gently raise the issue.
4) Give him/her another chance. And maybe a second one…but the third strike is out.
5) Politely terminate the relationship and refer to another insurance service provider.
6) Start fresh with new prospects.

Rohit expands on each idea in his blog post. I think all insurance professionals can relate with this issue. While most customer relationships are wonderful, there are always a few that just aren’t profitable or fair. If a customer is a consistent drain on your business or your team’s productivity, it may be beneficial to both you and the customer to part ways. Follow Rohit’s tips to do this successfully.