The Value of Continuing Education

You may have called the office, stopped in, or emailed your service person and found them to be out of the office.  While we do occasionally allow them vacation time, unchained from their desk and all, some times our staff is out of the office attending Continuing Education (CE) courses.  Several of our staff have even gone on to receive designations like Certified Insurance Service Representative (CISR), Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC), or Accredited Adviser in Insurance (AAI).

Why is this important?  To become a licensed insurance agent in Michigan, candidates have to pass a licensing exam.  These exams are not easy.  Although I don’t know exact pass/fail data, anecdotal evidence from friends in the industry suggests around half of exam takers have to re-take the exam after additional study.  When I took my exam in 1998, I preceded it with a week long licensing class.  Imagine learning about details of insurance contracts and coverages from 8 in the morning until 5 at night for five days in a row.  Sounds like fun right?  They’ve since come out with alternative options like self study, or self study with a three day classroom review….. but it’s still tough!

Once you receive that coveted license, you are required by state law to take 24 hours of approved continuing education classes, including 3 hours of ethics, every two years in order to maintain your license.  That should be reason enough why our staff is at times unavailable.  But that’s not the important reason.

Insurance is constantly evolving.  Court cases that challenge contract language are popping up right and left these days.  One little word change in your insurance contract could wipe out coverage that you thought was there.  Have you ever considered the difference between the word and and or?  It can be huge when dealing with an insurance contract.  The one way we stay up to date with these changes is through continuing education programs, especially those that go deeper into the insurance vault of details like the designation programs.  The knowledge the instructors convey, and the ability to discuss insurance situations with other attendees, is critical to knowing what coverage issues could pop up, or how to better insure certain risks.  We’re proud that 80% of our staff are licensed agents and very proud that 40% hold designations.

So next time you call and your service person is out of the office, they may just be enjoying themselves at an insurance education class.