Hiring a telemarketer is a business strategy an insurance agent can explore where the telemarketer is to secure appointments and the insurance agent focuses his or her time solely on appointments and writing applications.

Telemarketing can be an extremely efficient and inexpensive way of acquiring business if used correctly. It should be a carefully planned activity to ensure your strategies and tactics are spot-on.

In addition to scheduling appointments, a telemarketer can help qualified prospects interested in hearing from the insurance agent. The insurance agent can then focus on sales without the emotional baggage caused by making tonnes of cold calls.

The following are a number of tips that can help telemarketing service work best for you:

(a) Master the Art First

Go through the telemarketing process and be really good at it, only then you have the experience and competence to hire and effectively train a telemarketer. This is important if you want to get the best results from the telemarketing service.

(b) Use a Proven and Tested Script

A telemarketer has only a few seconds to make a good impression. Once you are sure you have the right script that you can use to produce desired results, you can train the telemarketer how to use the script tactfully especially when handling rejections.

(c) Selection Criteria

You may consider hiring telemarketers with sales background. They are able to take on the job more quickly and smoothly. Telemarketing is not for the faint-hearted, you may go through some basic call scenarios in order to judge their ability to manage stress.

(d) Adherence to Regulation

Study the laws regulating telemarketing activities in the area you operate your business. Find out if “Do not call list” is applicable. Make sure your phone list is scrubbed against “Do not call list”.

(e) Prospect Lists

If you decide to purchase prospect list, you may like to purchase from a reputable source that offers you the target market that you like to focus your energies on. Buying “freebie” lists can frustrate yourself and your telemarketers.

(f) Pay Rate and Incentive Scheme

Telemarketers are paid hourly plus bonus. A competitive wage and reward can ensure you get to hire experienced and dedicated telemarketers who in turn will do their best to set quality appointments for you.

(g) CRM System

Choose a CRM System that can bypass answering machine and connect prospects to the telemarketers as soon as the prospects pick up the phone. It is annoying for the prospects to listen to robotic sounding auto-diallers.

(h) Outsourcing

You may consider outsourcing. You can approach a telemarketing service provider that specializes in your service or product. For offshore services, assess the English-speaking and comprehension abilities of the telemarketers.

Telemarketing service can give your business a competitive edge by letting you concentrate on your core business activities. A strategic integration of telemarketing service into your business operation can help you significantly increase sales and profits.

Most landlords try to screen their potential boarders but even if you do this, you can’t make a full assessment of their personality with just a simple interview. Sure, you can do a background check on them to make sure they don’t have any criminal records but you can’t really gauge how capable they will be in taking care of your home.

This is why it is an excellent move for any landlord to take out a house insurance policy for the homes they are renting out. Even if the tenant turns out to be a careless slob who leaves stains everywhere or constantly leaves the doors unlocked, practically inviting robbers inside, your home will be protected against any damages they may make.

Typically, a rental house insurance policy will not cover the furniture and other items inside the house since those belong to the tenant. If anything gets stolen, it will be their loss and you will not be liable to them since your house insurance only covers the actual structure and fixtures in the house.

An issue you need to clarify before taking out a rental house insurance policy is whether the home will be left vacant for long periods of time. Usually, house insurance coverage will not include damages or losses that occurred more than 30 days after the house has been vacant.

This issue could be a big deal for landlords because some tenants might leave for a long summer vacation without informing you, leaving the home unoccupied and uncovered by house insurance. Another situation is when you are between tenants. There could be slow seasons when it will take a long time to find new tenants after the previous occupants have left. To avoid these situations, you can find house insurance policies that allow up to 90 days for your home to be vacant.

Many rental house insurance companies will be interested to know about the people who are renting your home. If the occupants are a homely middle-aged couple who regularly attends Thursday night bingo, you will probably be able to get excellent coverage on your house insurance policy. However, if your tenants are members of a college rock band who are more likely to go on a destructive rampage, you will surely have a difficult time finding a company to give you a decent Homeowner Insurance Guide coverage.

Of course these are extreme examples but you get the idea. More damage means more claims and more claims means more cash out for the insurance company. In fact it means more cash out for you as well because will have to shoulder the excess from your claims.

To summarize this all, you just need to find the right house insurance policy for your rental home and you can make your rental business grow in no time.

Rent to own houses have grown in popularity today. There’s a reason for this: Mortgage lenders have tightened their lending standards, and the average credit score of consumers’ has fallen. Rent to own houses, though, give credit-strapped buyers the opportunity to eventually purchase a home. They also give homeowners, who can’t nab high-enough prices by selling their homes in today’s down economy, the chance to earn at least some rental income from the houses that they can’t unload.

But rent to own houses do come with their own risks, and it’s up to the renters themselves to do the advance research that will help them avoid these risks.

Minnesota Public Radio recently ran a report on the booming rent to own market. The report said that while this market provides opportunities to both homeowners and hopeful homeowners, it also comes with potential pitfalls. The biggest problem, according to the story, is that rent to own arrangements are largely unregulated by government agencies.

Rent to Own Homes: An Unregulated Industry

State lawmakers in Minnesota are now working on legislation that would provide regulations for owners and renters entering into a rent to own agreement. But even if this legislation eventually passes, participants in rent to own agreements in most of the rest of the country will still have to navigate the process without the benefit of regulations.

Renters, then, who don’t want to fall into disputes with their new landlords, need to clarify the exact terms of any rent to own agreement in which they enter.

At their most basic, rent to own arrangements are relatively simple. Renters sign a lease, much like an apartment lease, to rent a house for a set period of time, usually a year. After a certain period, it could be as long as three to five years or as soon as the end of the first year-long lease, renters have the option to purchase the home that they had been renting.

Along the way, landlords reserve a portion of each month’s rent for a possible down payment should the renters decide to purchase the home.

The Benefits of Rent to Own Houses

The benefits of this arrangement are obvious: Homeowners earn rental income, and also secure a potential buyer for their residences. Renters learn what it’s like to live in a home and gain the time they need to improve their credit scores.

The potential pitfalls, though, are serious. The Minnesota Public Radio story, for instance, highlighted the case of a couple who were in a rent to own arrangement. When their house fell into foreclosure, the couple lost all the extra money they had set aside for a possible down payment. The couple also had disputes with their landlord over who was responsible for making major repairs with the house, the landlord or the renters.

The key to making a rent to own arrangement work is for both homeowners and renters to spell out exactly what is expected of everyone. Homeowners should explain exactly how much money they’ll be setting aside for a possible down payment from every rent check. They should also clarify what happens to this money if renters decide not to purchase the house or if the house falls into foreclosure. Both parties should also agree about who is responsible for repairs, lawn mowing, and other upkeep.

The Rent to Own Alternative

Rent to own houses can serve as a much-needed alternative for both homeowners and renters in today’s challenging real estate market. But unless both sides of the rent to own agreement are forthright with what is expected, the rent to own arrangement can lead to a long, and unpleasant, dispute. By doing their research before signing any papers, renters can take a huge step to avoiding such a negative situation.

Although equity indexed annuities have been around for a number of years, equity indexed universal life (EIUL) insurance is a relative newcomer to the life insurance marketplace. EIUL is a spin on universal life (UL) insurance, a popular policy type because you can increase or decrease your death benefit as your needs change and your premiums can be adjusted accordingly. UL policies also build a cash value against which you could borrow or even use to pay your premiums.

The equity indexed concept is relatively simple: the amount of interest credited to your policy’s cash value is tied to the performance of a particular index (the S&P 500 is one of the most popular), so that in years where the index performs well your interest crediting rate will rise, and in years where the index performs poorly, your interest crediting rate will fall.

Most policies guarantee that your interest crediting rate will never fall below zero so that you won’t lose money (you just won’t make it). They also have a cap as to how high a crediting rate they will pass on to you. This range of possible rates is often described as offering “upside potential with downside protection.”

How It Works

Typically, the big choice facing life insurance buyers is whether to go with a “safe” universal life policy that offers a minimum guaranteed rate but limited potential for cash accumulation or to go with a more “risky” variable life policy that offers greater potential for earnings but no protection against losses in the market.

EIUL insurance is an attempt to fill the gap between these two approaches. EIUL is universal life insurance in which the cash value is linked to a certain index. If the index is higher at the end of the year, your cash value may go up. If the index stays flat or goes down, your cash value earns the minimum guaranteed interest rate (say, 2 percent). You should note, however, that when your index goes up it doesn’t mean that your cash value increase will reflect the full index increase, due to fees, and dividends and capital gains aren’t included in the cash value’s calculation.

But are these new products the best of both worlds? Let’s take a look at both sides of the coin.

The Pros and Cons

One advantage of EIUL is the potential for higher interest crediting rates than a traditional universal policy. Another advantage is that it offers greater protection from market downturns than a variable life insurance policy.

Stephan Mitchell, product & competition analyst for Pacific Life Insurance Co., based in Newport Beach, Calif., points out that while these products are not a cure-all, they can offer “an attractive middle ground for buyers who saw the market downturn of 2001-2002 and are looking for some guarantees.” These products can offer some peace of mind to buyers looking for a mix of guarantees and some potential for cash accumulation.

However, there can be disadvantages to having an equity indexed product. The chief disadvantage of an equity indexed product is that it comes equipped with slightly higher risk than a traditional universal policy. Also, the cap rate

What are the main differences between insuring with an independent insurance agency vs. a captive agency? Many people are not sure of the differences so this article designed to help explain these differences.

A captive agency is an agency that writes usually through one company. They are usually multiline companies which means they can write several different lines of insurance like, home, auto, boat etc… but only through that one company. Their customers desire to be insured with the company based on brand recognition.

An independent agency is just the opposite. An independent will shop your coverage’s through multiple carriers sometimes 20-30 of the best carriers in the industry to find your best price. These carriers will usually specialize in that particular product and sometimes that is all they do. This is usually a good thing as they know that one product or line of insurance very well and are priced competitively to write a lot of that one product line.

If you prefer the captive route you are at the mercy of how competitive that one carrier is. More times than not, price is important but not necessarily the main focus with insuring with a captive agency. On the other hand, the independent side will tend to be more competitive in price but with carriers that are strong but not as well know as the captive carriers.

In the State of FL the captive agencies are having the most difficult time due to major restrictions on the property side. Many captive agencies have major restrictions or are in the process of cancelling their entire property book of business. Most of the business since the 04 hurricanes has shifted to the captives because of restrictions and price issues.

I hope this helps shed some light on the differences between the two types agencies. to find out more, contact us at the number at the top of your screen. Orlando Insurance Agency