03 January 2007

Screw This Retail Jive

Okay. I never, ever, ever post about work. Why bother? Sometimes what I do bores me, so boring as this blog is, I don't take it there.

But. Today, I appreciate my job. I love my job. I love being a wholesale commercial insurance broker. Know why? Probably not! Do you care? I don't care if you care, so here goes! The brokerage for which I work is relatively new. Growing up, I guess. & in one of their more adolescent moments (before my time), they decided to try their hand at retail accounts. Meaning directly dealing with real live insureds. Ick. Luckily, they quickly realized that this is a nasty, unwelcome path. Not, however, before they'd wound up binding a few of these "retail" accounts.

And what have I spent almost my ENTIRE day doing? Dealing with two of these accounts which are due to renew in February. You know what this means? I have had to sit here ALL DAY filling out applications & highlighting information that I need the insureds to give me & writing horribly simplistic letters with subjects like "Your General Liability Policy". And the grossest part is that this is only the beginning! The inevitable calls will follow. "I don't understand these questions." "What do I need to put here?" Ugh. I've already had one or two of those calls. At least retail agents allegedly have specialized insurance knowledge; hence, they tend to know what you're talking about when you use some obscure abbreviation like, I don't know, "GL".

I thank the heavens that I landed a job as a broker. I would've killed myself if I'd ended up in retail. It'd be off to the looney bin for me if I had to do this all day, every day. Sheesh.

On the other hand, I suddenly have a simultaneous newfound admiration/fear of those with the stamina to do this crap.

No comments: