How important are Acord forms?

[NCAgent828]

There are a few MGAs that offer the option to use their rater. PM me if you want more info.

 

[William C]

Good advice from William C. I licensed a couple of guys years ago who were working musicians who toured with well-known artists. When they weren't touring, they had a hard time earning money given how little the local music scene paid. So, after getting licensed, they focused on the music industry. One of them ended up leaving music for insurance and became a very good and commercially successful agent.

Another agent I know came from a family of jewelers. After licensing, he worked with a carrier to develop a jewelers insurance program based around a special jewelers block policy. He went on to sell that program to jewelers all over America and was earning a strong six-figure income.

I know several agents who specialize in community associations, selling master policies and related coverages while their personal lines operations sell condo, apartment, and other personal lines products.

Really knowing insurance coverages is a life-long project with thousands upon thousands of coverage forms in the marketplace. If you are directly in production, you will almost always be more successful by targeting your markets and developing expertise and a reputation for such expertise in those markets.

The agents you know that specialize in community associations. How do they get around "market blocking" when quoting ? Ask the president of the board to sign a BOR ? That has been my primary problem when going after gulf coast high rise condos. You wouldn't happen to be willing to help a fellow agent out would you ? If possible, do you know of any brokers and/or carriers that specialize in high TIV, high wind risk properties that you could point over to ? Maybe we can work out some type of deal ? Message me if you are interested

 

[Tom_Insurance_Guy]

Yes., there are tutorials.

Become a member of ACORD:

ACORD Forms

And you will have access to tutorials:

Member Training Materials

Is it free to join?

 

[marindependent]

ACORD forms may not be used much by captive insurance agencies/insurers but if you are a broker or independent agent - they do get used.
When you get into the non standard insurance world, such as non admitted, they are frequently used ALL the time.
Acords are a great tool that allows you to submit the submission to multiple sources. So if you are independent I would learn about them and learn about them well.

Lastly, Adobe Standard at $12.99 per month combined with the ability to export adobe Acords from a rater will save you a TON of time.

 

[Markthebroker]

I am planning on focusing on home and auto till I learn the business a little better.

Focus on learning the bizz. You will have plenty to learn. Worry about Acords later when you need to for commercial. You'll need it then, but skip it for now while you have plenty else on your plate.

 

[Go_AVYST]

We work with alot of agencies that find ACORD forms, along with supplemental applications and questionnaires required by many companies, to be a significant pain point. There is so much focus on the management system, Producer efficiency seems to get forgotten in the process. With more sophisticated accounts (personal or commercial lines), there is alot of information to collect and expecting the client to do the agent's job of filling out apps can be a turn off and a poor customer experience. Being efficient as a Producer means knowing your markets and their requirements, and having a solution to organize all of the necessary forms and applications. Having the ability to enter information one time, and it prefilling across all the forms in a submission is a HUGE time saving bonus!