I’m composing this month’s soliloquy (belatedly) from perhaps the most beautiful city in the country. God I love New Orleans. Here initially as a guest of the wonderful folks at Pan American Life and Mutual Trust, my wife Hope and I (by the grace of God I haven’t been Hopeless for more than a few days in almost 12 years!) are eagerly anticipating an extended weekend which I sincerely fear may catapult me finally into the self-esteem purgatory of adjustable-waist britches. Although the unenlightened may argue that it NOLA isn’t, in fact, the culinary Valhalla of our wonderful country (if not the world), one needs relatively few words (although there are myriad) to put any argument into the realm of patient, head-pat-worthy, “There, there Dear” ignorance…gumbo…creole sauce…cajun seasoning…crawdads…jambalaya…andouille sausage…paneed anything… And fried chicken. Merciless courtesan that she is, the Crescent City is holding a fried chicken festival this weekend. I’m nearly convinced that this is why God invented stretch-banded sweatpants. But I digress.
Setting aside for the moment arguably my favorite of the Seven Deadlies (and that I’m further biased by the fact that Kevin and Michel Boudreaux are two of the most wonderful friends anyone could hope for), NOLA’s beauty seems to stretch the spectrum—architecture, gardens, jazz, history, nightlife, art, unique shops, the somber dignity of the crypted graveyards…heck, I don’t even mind the wearable air that much when I’m in the French Quarter. But most beautiful of all to me is the somehow both understated and enthusiastic underlying pride of the people. Although I may question the talents of the Jackson Square psychic who couldn’t remember my name, the pride with which the silver painted statue dude, in an unguarded moment, proclaimed himself a performance artist seriously brought a tiny bit of joy to my heart. I love the bottlecap tap dancers, the street musicians (even the seemingly less gifted tuba guy), the unerringly happy, purpose-filled and outgoing pedicab peddlers, the enthusiastic airport cabbies, the shopkeepers and many and varied small museum curators/barkers/guides, the sincere warmth of literally every single employee at every single hotel at which I’ve stayed (except, surprisingly, my lone visit to the NOLA incarnation of a national chain renowned for its “exceptional” customer service). And, yes, I love the welcoming enthusiasm of restaurant staff from maitre d or hostess to server to chef to even buspeople.
I’m not Pollyanna to the degree that I ignore the fact that New Orleans has horribly depressed areas of hopelessness, frequent violence and numbing despair. I recognize that my forays within the embrace of this city are chiefly limited to zones where the importance of tourist dollars are unerringly recognized and irrevocably linked to both individual and retail wellbeing. But these factors exist to some degree in every city to which I’ve travelled in this country and there is, at least cemented in my mind, an undeniable, earnest gleam in the eye of the vast majority of the New Orleans residents I encounter and here canonize.
So when the heck is the segue to the insurance-related point?
Agency Best Practices is a fairly broad brush, encompassing myriad concepts and disciplines. Any number of them are worthy of inclusion here: Placing client service above personal gain; diligent periodic reviews rather than transactional sales; willing assistance from application through claims; underwriting and projection integrity and disclosure; education of agent, client and prospect; long term care planning, including all available options at point of need; comprehensive benefit planning; financial, estate, retirement and legacy planning that includes protecting the income stream in both the accumulation and distribution phases; varied and beneficial communication to all through each generation’s preferred channels; regulatory and compliance awareness and adherence; meticulous client fact finding and needs analysis; mentoring less experienced agents; developing succession plans for your agencies so that your clients don’t end up orphans; public service/charitable giving be it monetary support, dirt under your fingernails or altruistic financial counsel to those in need.
But to loosely gather the strands of this monolog, perhaps this issue’s focus should be modified to Industry Best Practices. Although New Orleans also boasts its fair share of those “fabulously well-to-do” (who certainly deserve our industry’s attention in their own right), what struck me this morning, as I watched many of NOLA’s unsung heroes hurrying to their daily duties, was that our true best practice would be to diligently seek a way to get many many more of these wonderful people, and their counterparts across our country, protected from life’s hurricanes by the vast array of products our industry has to offer. [SPH]
