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Wednesday, March 18, 2020

IN THIS ISSUE: 

VIDEO: The PIA Partnership presents, Winning@Talent

Winning@Talent, a 3-part toolkit created specifically to help agencies understand how to best recruit in today's talent marketplace, while enhancing the employee experience so that employees want to stay.

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PIA and The PIA Partnership are proud to introduce Winning@Talent, the independent insurance agent's guide to hiring, motivating and retaining the best agency employees.

 

Winning@Talent is a 3-part toolkit featuring intuitive tools that take agency employers through a simple journey that starts with determining if their agency is well positioned to attract quality candidates and ends with a happy, productive employee.

 

Part 1, Are You Ready to Recruit?, focuses on helping agencies assess their employer brand so they can see their agency the way prospective employees see their agency. In this section, we help agency owners and managers assess their employer brand, provide tools to help them build and strengthen it, and offer best practices on how to make it resonate across communication channels and social networks.

 

Part 2, Sourcing, Recruiting and Hiring, focuses on sourcing potential hiring prospects, recruiting them into your agency and ultimately hiring them. This section offers resources and best practices to help agency owners and managers find, screen, interview and evaluate candidates in ways that will help them reduce their time to fill key positions, build their talent pipeline and meet long-term recruiting goals.

 

Part 3, Retaining Your Best Employees, focuses on how agencies can retain their best employees because employee retention is vital to growing any agency. This section provides best practices and resources that agency owners and managers can share with their employees to help those employees with their own career development.

 

Get started Winning@Talent today at www.winningattalent.com.

 

Winning@Talent is brought to you by The PIA Partnership, a joint effort of leading insurance companies and PIA. Thank you to the members of The PIA Partnership: Encompass Insurance, Erie Insurance, Liberty Mutual Insurance, MetLife Auto & Home, National General Insurance, Progressive Insurance, Selective Insurance Group, State Auto Insurance Companies, The Hanover Insurance Group and West Bend Mutual Insurance Company.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration released guidance to help employers prepare their workplaces for an outbreak of COVID-19 — along with a reminder that any incidents of employees contracting the novel coronavirus at work are recordable illnesses, subject to the same rules and failure-to-record fines as other workplace injuries and illnesses.

 

While OSHA specifically exempts employers from recording incidents of employees contracting common colds and the flu in the workplace, COVID-19 is not exempt, the agency noted in a new document.

In the rapidly evolving situation regarding the coronavirus pandemic, PIA has started a resource webpage. We will be making continued updates to this page, but wanted to share the landing page with you: www.pianet.com/coronavirus.

 

Resources from PIA, the CDC, and our industry partners can be used to assist you in adapting to the new environment. Insurance agencies should consider implementing safeguards to reduce exposure to illness.

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A new podcast from FC&S and PropertyCasualty360.com highlights some of the issues for insurers surrounding COVID-19. t's the first segment in a new insurance-related podcast series entitled, Insurance Speak.

 

In the first segment, Christine Barlow, managing editor of FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation, looks at the lines of insurance most likely to be affected by the COVID-19 disease, discusses which areas are likely to see the most claims, and explains the role of policy interpretation and why this is so important for carriers and policyholders alike.

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The coronavirus has upended lives and businesses around the globe. From business interruption and supply chain disruption to event and travel cancellations, we are only just seeing the beginning stages of COVID-19's impact.

 

These articles from NUPC National Underwriter, NUPC 360 and FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation provide valuable insights on insurance coverage, preparation tips and more to help individuals and businesses reduce exposures as the virus spreads.

 

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer requested President Donald Trump to open a special 60-day Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment period to allow uninsured people to obtain health care coverage. Michigan is under a state of emergency after two residents tested "presumptive positive" for coronavirus.

 

"During this crisis, we must do everything we can to ensure access to quality, affordable health care," Whitmer said in a statement. "That's why we're calling on the president to allow for a special enrollment period, and why we're taking action today in Michigan to expand opportunities for safe, quality care through telemedicine."

 

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner Gary D. Anderson issued a bulletin announcing a special enrollment period (SEP) effective immediately until April 25 for eligible individuals in the Commonwealth who are not currently enrolled in an insurance plan.

 

The Massachusetts Division of Insurance collaborated with the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority in developing the bulletin. In light of the spread of COVID-19 and its impact to the public's health, the Connector has announced a limited-time SEP, during which currently uninsured Massachusetts residents can enroll in health coverage. This SEP will not allow currently enrolled individuals to switch plans.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is canceling the in-person version of its spring national meeting due to concerns about the outbreak of coronavirus.

 

Mike Consedine, the NAIC's chief executive officer, said in a tweet that the NAIC will be moving the meeting proceedings to a virtual format.

 

"The important work will continue, but we'll now have to work smarter and safer," Consedine said in the tweet. "Like it or not, just as 9/11 did, #coronavirus has forever changed the world we live and work in."

Under Florida law, certain licensed insurance employees are required to conduct business from their agency offices. In the wake of Florida's state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis issued a directive allowing Florida agency customer service representatives to conduct business outside of a licensed agency.

 

The order states, "In order to afford flexibility to licensees who are quarantined or whose offices are subject to closure due to the COVID-19, the Department of Financial Services will not enforce provisions of [Florida Statutes] until May 8, unless this order is extended by subsequent Directive of the Chief Financial Officer."

 

The law, enacted in 1990, applies to people who have a Florida 4-40 Resident Customer Service Representative license. It allows salaried employees of insurance agents or agencies in Florida to transact insurance business under the supervision of a licensed and appointed general lines agent.

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Latest From the PIA Advocacy Blog

 

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Upcoming PIA webinars:

 

 

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Pathway to Perpetuation
New PIA program helps agency owners value their businesses and plan for succession


Rough Notes March 2020

One More Time

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Americans "should be prepared that they're going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing."

 

--Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

PIA NATIONAL
NEWSLINE
EDITORIAL STAFF:

 

PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:
Ted Besesparis
703-518-1352

 

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS EDITOR:
Jon Gentile
703-518-1365

 

REGULATORY AFFAIRS EDITOR:
Lauren Pachman, Esq.
703-518-1344

 

EDITOR/ADVERTISING:
Alexi Papandon
703-518-1353

 

ASSISTANT EDITOR:

Sade Hale
703-518-1350

The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) is an association dedicated to the growth and perpetuation of its members as business professionals who meet the needs of consumers by marketing insurance products and services. PIA members are Local Agents Serving Main Street AmericaSM. Send your comments, story ideas and feedback regarding PIA National Newsline to newsline@pianet.org.

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