State Auditor's Office Conducts Insurance Agency Audits

I recently met a very nice fellow named Brian who works as investigator for the State Auditor's Office.

Part of his job, in addition to investigating complaints and fraud, involves visiting insurance agencies across the state to conduct compliance audits. I was very happy to have passed my audit!

Here's the kind of things the Auditor's Office wants to know:

• Are your insurance producer and consultant licenses posted in your office?
• Do you have separate Trust and Operating bank accounts?
• What kind of duties and transactions are your unlicensed staff members conducting?
• Does anyone in your office have any questions or concerns that he can help you with?

My meeting took very little time and Brian answered all the questions I have. His goal, and that of the State Auditor's Office, is to assure that insurance transactions are processed smoothly and accurately.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can reach the State Auditor's Office/Department of Insurance at 800-332-6148 or http://sao.mt.gov/.

Adding Great Falls to our Schedule

We visited Great Falls earlier this month and were welcomed warmly by a number of insruance professionals: title producers, P&C producers, adjusters, and insurance company personnel.

Since then, we've been contacted by a number of people - both those who attended and those who were referred by our June participants.

Call or e-mail us if you'd be willing to attend CE seminars in Great Falls. It's looking like we'll be adding your town to the schedule in 2010. The more input we have from you, the better we'll be able to meet your needs and requirements.

Office Phone: (406) 542-1045 or (866) 949-1045

Click here to e-mail.

What Types of CE Seminars Would YOU Like to See?

We are in the process of writing new CE classes for presentation beginning later this year. Here are some of the topics that have been suggested to us:

• Health insurance - both individual and group (we're writing it now)
• Disability Income (we're writing it now)
• Worker's Compensation basics (we wrote it for you)
• General Liability basics (we included that with the WC class we wrote for you)
• Life Insurance
• Long Term Care (we're writing it now)

It has also been suggested that we offer CE that meets the approval standards of both the state of Montana and the CFP designation.

Your thoughts? Your suggestions?

Although I can't guarantee that we'll write a class for everyone, I can guarantee that we'll take your suggestions seriously and include in our curriculum as many of your suggested topics as we can.

Thanks for contributing to our success!

Career Development Workshops - for Insurance and NON-Insurance Businesses

Do you have a sales staff experiencing difficulty selling? Are your staff members blaming slow sales on the economy? On something else?

Do you have a young sales force that's plugging away but wishing they could find an easier way to get the job done?

Are your marketing efforts leaving you cold? Wishing you had more exciting ways of promoting your business?

Are your customers griping? Do you wish you could keep them happy?

We can help you answer these questions and solve your dilemmas.

We offer a variety of Career Development Workshops addressing a number of topics; Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and more. We also provide in-house training on these and other topics. Visit our website to check out some of the workshops we've already successfully presented or give us a call to discuss arranging workshops that fit your needs.

CE Exemption per 2009 Legislative Session

Per recently enacted legislate, producers who are licensed to sell ONLY surety bonds are now exempt from obtaining 24 credit-hours of approved continuing education per renewal biennium.

They ARE however, required to obtain 5 credit-hours of approved continuing education in the areas of law, ethics, or surety bond-specific instruction.

The legislation became effective when enacted in April.

Changes to CE Requirements for Licensed Producers, Adjusters, & Consultants

Senate Bill 127 of the 2009 Legislature included the revised insurance continuing education requirement that includes 3 credit hour of ethics for all licensees as part of the existing 24 credit hour insurance continuing education compliance. One may read the bill language at: http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billpdf/SB0127.pdf

SB 127, Section 10 states: "Applicability. [Section 8] applies to 24-month periods for obtaining continuing education beginning on or after January 1, 2010." Licensees may take courses to meet this requirement after 1/1/10 and must first report compliance 1/1/12.

Faulkner Education Services has been offering an Ethics seminar since January 0f 2007 that has been approved for 4 hours of CE in Montana. We are offering this seminar on the following dates in 2009 - and may add more dates to our calendar, depending upon the needs of our clients:

• July 31, 8am - 12pm, Missoula - Best Western Grant Creek Inn
• December 9, 8am - 12pm, Missoula - Best Western Grant Creek Inn

We also offer in-house seminars and will be happy to discuss arranging in-house offering of our Insurance Ethics seminar.

2009 Montana Legislative Changes

I am currently writing my new legislatvie changes class and hope to have it submitted to the DOI for consideration at the June review. If approved, I'll be offering it during my CE Marathon the last week of July.