How Can I Qualify To Become
A General Lines (2-20) Agent?

1. You must be at least 18 years of age.
   
   
2. You must be a bona fide resident of Florida.
   
   
3. You will have a place of business in Florida, will actively engage in the business, and maintain a place of business identifiable and accessible to the public.
   
   
4. You are not seeking the license for the purpose of writing “controlled business” (more than 50% of income is from business for your or your family’s interests or other organizations in which you are associated or interested).
   
   
5. You are qualified by knowledge, experience or instruction through one of the following:
   
   
   1. Taught or successfully completed a Department of Insurance approved course within 4 years immediately preceding the date of application – 200-hour classroom course.
   2. Complete an approved correspondence course AND have 6 months “all-lines” insurance duties as a full time employee of an agency or company within 4 years immediately preceding the date of application.
   3. Have at least one year of experience in “all-lines” insurance duties as a full time employee of an agency or company within 4 years immediately preceding the date of application without the education requirement.

It is important to understand that the term “all-lines” refers to all of the lines of insurance that you will be licensed to handle by the issuance of this license. Those lines of insurance as outlined by the Department of Insurance include:

Marine

Health

Casualty

Property

Surety Bonds

Having had experience means the person applying for the license has performed all of the tasks relating to the types of insurance listed. Those tasks include:

Incidental taking of applications

Quoting premiums

Receiving payments

Handling declarations pages

If you’re planning to sit for the exam based on experience our advice is to gain the experience by way of spending time with someone in the agency who does that specific task. For example, to gain the proper health insurance experience, sit with the health insurance specialist in the agency when a client is being interviewed. Then, next time have the health specialist show you how to quote the policy and complete the application with the client. When the policy arrives from the company, review it with the health specialist and be present when the policy is delivered to the client. By doing these tasks on an “incidental” basis you’ll have gained the required experience and will be able to honestly complete the application for exam.

Obtain a 4-year degree with at least 15 semester hours in Property and Casualty insurance from an accredited college or university.

Hold the Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation and having been engaged in the insurance business within the past 4 years. An original letter from the American Institute for Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters certifying your designation status is required. While an exam is required for situations 5.a. through 5.d. above, no examination is required when you qualify by this means.

A copy of the licensing procedures established by the Florida Department of Insurance can be found at the DFS website, www.fldfs.com or by calling the Bureau of Agent and Agency Licensing at 850-413-3137, ext 1101. Applications can be printed from the website. There will be additional information that may be required, such as fingerprint cards. The application instructions will instruct you as to the handling of these items.

If you have moved to Florida from another state and were licensed as an agent in that state it is important to note that you will still have to meet the qualifications outlined above. Florida does not extend reciprocity to any other state insurance licensing procedures.

How Can FAIA Assist You
In Obtaining This License?

How Can I Qualify To Become
A Customer Representative (4-40)?

1. You will be employed by, supervised by, spend all business time for, and be domiciled in the office of one agent.
   
   
2. You are not seeking the license for the purpose of writing “controlled business” (more than 50% of income is from business for your or your family’s interests or other organizations in which you are associated or interested).
   
   
3. You are qualified by knowledge, experience or instruction through one of the following:
   
   

a. Successfully completed a Department of Insurance approved course within 2 years immediately preceding the date of application – 100-hour classroom course.

b. Successfully complete an approved correspondence course approved by the Department of Insurance.

c. Obtained a 4-year degree with at least 6 semester hours of college credit in Property and Casualty insurance at an accredited institution of higher learning.

d. Have at least 6 months experience in “all-lines” insurance duties as a full time employee of an agency or company within 2 years immediately preceding the date of application without the education requirement.

Qualifying for the DOI/DFS Exam by Experience

Individuals attempting to qualify for a Department of Financial Services, DSF, (formerly the Department of Insurance) license exam (2-20 or 4-40) must have had the appropriate “all lines” experience if seeking to qualify based on experience. For the 2-20 license it’s a full year of experience, and for the 4-40 license it’s six months of all lines experience. The term “all lines” means the individual has had experience in all of the following five lines of insurance: marine, health, casualty, property, and surety bonds. Having had experience means the applicant has performed all of the following tasks: incidental taking of applications, quoting premiums, receiving payments, and handling daily reports (declarations pages) for these lines.

As far as the DFS is concerned it’s very simple: if you don’t check all five blocks for the lines of coverage, and if you haven’t performed all the “experience” tasks, then you don’t qualify to sit for the exam by way of experience. You must either gain that experience or attend the 200-hour (2-20 license) or 100-hour (4-40 license) qualification course.

If you’re planning to sit for the exam based on experience our advice is to gain the experience by way of spending time with someone in the agency who does that specific task. For example, to gain the proper health insurance experience sit with the health insurance specialist in the agency when a client is being interviewed. Then next time have the health specialist show you how to quote the policy and then complete the application with the client. When a policy arrives from the company, review it with the health specialist and then be present when the policy is delivered to the client. By doing these tasks on an “incidental” basis you’ll have gained the required experience and will be able to honestly complete the application for exam.

Agency Team
Building

Why is it Important?

The internal workings of the agency require that the employees interact effectively on a day to day basis. Cooperation and communication among the staff is necessary for the individuals to accomplish their job as well as for the agency to grow and to prosper.



No individual within the agency can work in a vacuum. The exchange of information regarding changes in the marketplace, new policy provisions, new underwriting guidelines, and the communication of agency procedures is essential in order to perform your job. As you gain information it is very important that you communicate new information to your co-workers.

Internal Communication

The exchange of information within the agency occurs in numerous ways. One of the most common is an informal method of conversation among employees where one employee may become aware of some important information and relates that information through general conversation to another employee.



Although this can be an effective method of communication between two people, it does not serve the purpose of passing the information on to all that may need to know. In order to make sure that information is properly communicated to all who need to know a more formal method should be used.



Communication between departments is critical to the effective service of the insureds. In many cases the departments within an agency do not effectively communicate with one another. Commercial accounts have the potential to become personal accounts. Many times personal accounts also have the potential to become commercial accounts.



If your agency also handles Life and Health insurance through a separate department, regular communication should take place with this department as well. Opportunities exist which will benefit the agency as well as the insured, but only if there is cooperation between departments. If an opportunity exists with another department take the initiative and tell the other department. Remember, full account management means cross selling between all departments. If you think improvements can be made in this area, bring it up at your next departmental staff meeting.

Agency Meetings

Regularly scheduled meetings, both for departments, as well as for the entire agency, provides the most effective way to communicate important information to all those who need to know. This method provides an opportunity to not only pass new information to those who will use it the most, but also provides the opportunity to discuss all of the applications of this new knowledge.



How will it impact the way the agency does business? What will be the effect on the customers? Will the information require a change in the way you do business? All of these questions and more should be addressed during the agency meetings. If new procedures are required to meet the needs of the change or new information they should be discussed during the meeting. All those in attendance should have the opportunity to ask questions and receive clarification if the information is not understood.



This forum also provides the attendees the chance to discuss and exchange their ideas as to how the department or agency can better function given the information being presented. Individual opinions may lead to a decision to try something unique and better suited to the individual operations of the agency.

Departmental Meeting Agenda

(scheduled monthly)

Review of discussions from prior meeting.

• Questions/discussion from prior meeting’s topics.
• Discussion of any problems from actions taken from prior meetings.
• Update on current status of agency/department goals and objectives.
• Future goals and objectives.

• Market conditions
• Changes in agency marketing direction. (new programs, etc.)
• Changes in carriers programs, underwriting, rules.
• New markets or opportunities.
• New Business issues (new sales in process)
• Upcoming new accounts, (type, size, work required)
• Marketing issues affecting new business activity.
• Renewals to be handled (90 to 120 days in the future)
• Potential account problems (market, competition, pricing)
• Strategy by account. (who will handle and how to be handled)
• Personnel issues.
• Scheduling (vacations, education, leaves, etc.)
• Personnel awards/recognition.

General Agency Meeting Agenda

(scheduled quarterly or semi-annually)

• Current status of agency’s performance vs. objectives.
• New business sales.
• Renewals, premium and retention.
• Business and market conditions affecting the agency.
• General Insurance and economic conditions.
• New opportunities or changes in programs and markets.
• New or changed agency marketing strategies.
• Agency procedures
• Changes or additions to current procedures.
• Discussion of current procedures.
• Personnel issues.
• Additions, deletions, changes.
• Personnel awards/recognition.

The definition of team work according to Webster is as follows: Work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole. In other words several people working together to accomplish a task with no one person necessarily being more important to the task than the others involved.



Communication is the cornerstone of team work. In order for people to work together they must let each other know what they are doing, how they are doing it, and pass this information on to the entire team. Meetings, and formal communication provide the means for this information to be passed from one manager, supervisor, or employee to a group of employees allowing them the knowledge needed to complete the work involved.



Participation with the team is the responsibility of all those involved. Any one person who decides not to hold up their part of the work will have a negative impact on all those involved. Everyone is a necessary link in the chain.



In agency customer service this may involve a number of people.

Think about how your agency is structured. Who has the responsibility for the tasks listed above? Do you have regular communication with those people in order to accomplish the work that needs to be done? Could you work together more effectively to meet the needs of the insured and the agency?

Your agency may have separate individuals who handle each of these functions, or as is commonly the case, the Customer Service Representative may handle several of these functions. Regardless of how your agency is staffed interaction between staff members in a cooperative manner is essential for the business to be handled properly. Each person has their role, and all must perform their part(s) of the process.

Communication Techniques Refer to the Telephone section of this manual.

Agency Start-up Checklist

• Go to www.myflorida.com, click on "Business", click "starting a business in Florida".
• Get a 220 license and file primary agent form.
• Put together a business plan and resume. You can get help with a business plan from the Florida SBDA at www.floridasbdc.com/.
• Find companies to represent.
• Purchase an E&O policy (Very important)
• Organize a competent staff
  • See www.faia.com/scriptcontent/fa_custom/education/edlibrary/turnkey.pdf.
• Purchase a good agency management system
• Find a good office location - www.myflorida.com.
• Purchase the necessary city and county licenses - www.myflorida.com.
• Have a Grand Opening!