If You Take a Class from IIAV, You’re Going to Learn Something
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How do you compete with free? How do you compete with classes designed just to provide hours — quick and easy?
When the Continuing Education Law was passed for insurance agents, it was done with the intent that insurance agents are indeed professionals and the “rules” of this profession are constantly changing. This became even more apparent when ethics became an integral part of the education requirements. The availability of courses skyrocketed as the required demand for CE hours grew. And with the advent of online CE, it became easier and easier to provide. Everyone got into the game as it were. IIAV has had a long-standing commitment to continuing education — required or not. It’s part of our so-called three legged stool of our core responsibilities to the membership — Advocacy, Information and Education. We were one of the first to jump headlong into online CE through webinars, thinking that finally we had a cost-effective way of bringing education courses to our membership directly and in areas where it is difficult to get core attendance to make if feasible on a regular basis. Interestingly enough, our member agents in Northern Virginia take the greatest advantage of webinars ... because they don’t have to put up with the traffic to get to the classes. Who knew?
Early on, we were alarmed with the availability of free CE or extremely low cost CE. How can we compete with that? We even noticed that some organizations got out of the CE business. IIAV’S Board, however, insisted that it was one of our core responsibilities to the membership ... so we decided not to compete with free.
Instead we looked at the type of classes our members wanted. We looked at the technical opportunities that our members were looking to expand their services to. We asked our members what type of classes and even designations that they were looking for. As I draft this article, we have a class going on as part of our CRIS designation — Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist. It’s a highly valued credential and is taught by specialists in the field.
We also looked at our designation philosophy. There are some designations that require “captive” ongoing classes — sort of a build your own audience courses. A number of our members and some of the larger agency members argued against that course of action with a “get the designation and move on to the next challenge” philosophy.
In short, if you take an IIAV class, you’re going to learn something. We seek the best instructors and most highly qualified professionals to teach our courses. We look for courses and subjects of interest. We look for career path course programs. And we still seek to hold our classes across the state and via webinar. Personally, I have a hard time with the webinar classes. I like to get out and meet the membership and hear directly the challenges our members are facing. Hard to do when I’m presenting the legislative update course via webinar and there are over 500 individuals taking the webinar. The good news with that, however, is if I present a joke and it bombs ... I’m the only one laughing.
Bottom line: IIAV is YOUR professional and industry association representing independent insurance agencies and agents. What courses do YOU want us to teach? What subjects do YOU want us to present — via webinar or otherwise? What training do YOU see heading in our direction and what type of instructors do you want us to approach for teaching? And finally ... what type of designations are YOU looking for either personally or for the culture and specialty practice of your agency?
Drop me a line at rbradshaw@iiav.com or give me a call at 804-747-9300. Or email Carter Lyons, our Director of Professional Development at clyons@iiav.com or call her at the same number. We want to make sure we’re providing the continuing professional education that you’re looking for and want.
Bob Bradshaw
IIAV President & CEO
rbradshaw@iiav.com
