I worked for an independent agency for four years as a customer service rep. I mostly handled payments, managed document storage, and processing endorsements.
I left there to take a position with a captive agency. I have been at my new job for a few months now, and the longer I am here, the more concerned I am about the condition of the agency.
At first I thought that either I came from an agency that was just overly cautious, or that my new agency had simply been understaffed for too long and things had gotten out of hand. The more I learn however, the more I realize there are no SOP's, no workflows, no set methods for anything.
Today I found out that the operations manager is not given access to the trust account to balance it, and that the owner of the agency hasn't balanced the account in years. The OM told me that she is fairly sure there is at least one homeowner premium in there that has never been swept out by the company it is brokered to, and she has no way to track who the premium belongs to. She is unsure it's even there, since she can only estimate what is in there. Today we had a customer bring in a notice that his brokered policy hadn't been paid, so she had me go ahead and set it up to sweep, not knowing if she had already sent a check, or if it had been swept- completely blind.
Corporate has been requesting that we upload a copy of an umbrella policy application from 1994. No one can find it. This company apparently doesn't require new apps every few years as some I'm familiar with do. While looking for it (they have never scan/purged the old files, and are not consistent scanning the new ones) I have found boxes with piles of documents. Apps, change requests, receipts, all mixed together.
They have had "scanning" in place for over 2 years, but each of the agents is about 4 months behind on their scanning. I have found 2 home policies that have cancelled for lack of us having a consent to rate form uploaded to corporate.
Since I have been there I have learned to write policies, though I'm not completely confident that I am being trained properly. I can't just quit and go somewhere else. There are very few jobs in our area and I have signed a non compete.
I don't even know who to report these problems to. I feel like if corporate knew the things going on that they would shut this office down, or possibly take it from this agent.
I am in North Carolina. Does anyone have any advice or direction for me?
I left there to take a position with a captive agency. I have been at my new job for a few months now, and the longer I am here, the more concerned I am about the condition of the agency.
At first I thought that either I came from an agency that was just overly cautious, or that my new agency had simply been understaffed for too long and things had gotten out of hand. The more I learn however, the more I realize there are no SOP's, no workflows, no set methods for anything.
Today I found out that the operations manager is not given access to the trust account to balance it, and that the owner of the agency hasn't balanced the account in years. The OM told me that she is fairly sure there is at least one homeowner premium in there that has never been swept out by the company it is brokered to, and she has no way to track who the premium belongs to. She is unsure it's even there, since she can only estimate what is in there. Today we had a customer bring in a notice that his brokered policy hadn't been paid, so she had me go ahead and set it up to sweep, not knowing if she had already sent a check, or if it had been swept- completely blind.
Corporate has been requesting that we upload a copy of an umbrella policy application from 1994. No one can find it. This company apparently doesn't require new apps every few years as some I'm familiar with do. While looking for it (they have never scan/purged the old files, and are not consistent scanning the new ones) I have found boxes with piles of documents. Apps, change requests, receipts, all mixed together.
They have had "scanning" in place for over 2 years, but each of the agents is about 4 months behind on their scanning. I have found 2 home policies that have cancelled for lack of us having a consent to rate form uploaded to corporate.
Since I have been there I have learned to write policies, though I'm not completely confident that I am being trained properly. I can't just quit and go somewhere else. There are very few jobs in our area and I have signed a non compete.
I don't even know who to report these problems to. I feel like if corporate knew the things going on that they would shut this office down, or possibly take it from this agent.
I am in North Carolina. Does anyone have any advice or direction for me?
