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Welcome to the BEST blog: A place for Renee E. Bryan to Spout-Off

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If you have something to share, you can email Renee at reneeb@bryanventures.com, or post it right on our Facebook page. Please be advised: Any references you choose to make to this blog are open game for future posts. (Who am I kidding? ANYTHING is game for future posts.) Thank you!

"Important Changes to our Insurance CE Classes for 2019"

Published November 2018

 

This blog highlights important insurance CE changes at Bryan Ventures for 2019.

Renee E. Bryan also publishes writing at her blog: WrongWayLizzie.Me.

 
  Hello there-I hope you are enjoying the change of seasons. In this picture, I might look like I am enjoying the cold, but honestly, I miss my bike rides and evening walks with the sun just setting AFTER dinner. This is the thing though, it doesn't pay to get upset about it. Being sullen or angry isn't going to change the fact that it is colder, the days are shorter, and the roads maybe slippery.

When considering ALL this seasonal "change", there are a few other changes to update you for our 2019 insurance CE course offerings. These "changes" have both good and bad news. Having asked many classes which they'd prefer first, the good or the bad, I know the most common response is the "bad". I also know that many times people will offer some explanation before the bad news in an effort to help minimize any ill effect from said "bad" news. The problem with this strategy, at least as I consider the times I've been offered "bad" news, when the person gets to the "bad" stuff, the temperance didn't help. It was still really BAD. So, instead of helping to temper this, I'm just going to give it to you straight.

Bryan Ventures will no longer offer online insurance classes for Wisconsin and Iowa. When this will happen will vary. Most of our Wisconsin online insurance CE classes renew this spring, March 31, 2019. For Iowa, it will be later in the early winter, around November 2019. We will simply non-renew them and allow them to expire. We are taking these steps for two reason:

  1. We've never really made money on these classes. After two decades in Wisconsin, we barely break even on these offerings. Because these two states allow unlimited company sponsored credits, we simply cannot compete.
  2. I might still consider offering them as a service IF the reporting requirements in both these states were not an administrative nightmare. These two states process credits through the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) and the NAIC charges fees for us to report the credits. We have to collect these amounts from the agents. We need big profit margins for all this extra work and we are just not getting it.
We have invested much time and energy with little reward, and I kept doing it hoping something would change. Nothing has so no more online insurance CE for Iowa and Wisconsin starting in 2019. To those agents who have used us in the past, we appreciate the business and are grateful for you. We wish things had turned out differently.

PLEASE DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND--We will still offer online insurance CE to Minnesota resident agents and if you are a non-resident for either of these states, the credits you earn for Minnesota will still qualify. We simply are not going to offer online insurance CE to the resident agents of Iowa and Wisconsin as the courses expire in 2019.

Bryan Ventures has cancelled our live classroom offerings in Iowa for 2019. Our live classroom insurance CE courses will still be approved for Iowa agents in 2019 and they can attend any of our locations and earn credit. Groups in Iowa can still contract with Bryan Ventures to offer live insurance CE to their agents, but we will NOT be hosting live CE in the borders of Iowa. Furthermore, unless we get more interest from Iowa agents, we will probably non-renew these classes as they expire in November 2019. IMPORTANT NOTE: We will continue to gain approval and renew any live classroom courses for both Minnesota and Wisconsin resident agents. We just will not renew our courses in Iowa.

By the way, agents in Iowa suggested we offer webinars which would qualify for your live classroom CE requirement. To you and to any other agent in any state who thinks this maybe a good idea, just so you know, I'd rather gouge my eyes out than talk to my computer or a camera for hours while you sit in your office doing work. NOT kidding you. It would eat my soul--literally.

I love meeting you in our live classroom environments. There is a synergy that happens there that I believe we all benefit from and can take back to our lives afterward. Now, you can even come with us to DESTINATION CE locations for even more "synergy". I'm blessed to offer you online classes you can avail yourself of whenever you choose. This is great for you and great for me too. In fact, we plan to add video content to our online insurance CE courses to enhance the interactive nature, but I will not sit in my office nagging for your attention while you do God knows what in your office or your home. No amount of money will make that something we will ever consider at Bryan Ventures. Kudos to the companies that do it or the people willing to engage at that level. We have our niche, they can have theirs.

Okay, on to the GOOD NEWS...
We are offering FIVE NEW course dates at our most popular live classroom locations. Essentially, we filled the gap created by cancelling the Iowa classes with the locations our agents prefer to attend. We also found that our La Crosse agents preferred to attend at a different time of the year so we moved that offering to a new date. Below are the changes to the previous calendar--all other offerings remained the same:
  • DULUTH: January 29 & 30 as well as July 10 & 11
  • SAINT PAUL: October 29 & 30 as well as January 23 & 24
  • LA CROSSE: Moved from June dates to April 24 & 25
  • MANKATO: November 11 & 12 as well as June 19 & 20
  • ROCHESTER: June 26 & 27 as well as November 6 & 7
  • SAINT CLOUD: August 27 & 28 as well as November 13 & 14

I HIGHLY encourage you to go to our website and review the 2019 dates now AND to proceed to set it in your calendar by registering.

I just took a call from a gentleman in southeast Minnesota looking for classes in that area before March. If you look at the upcoming calendar, we won't be there during that time frame, BUT I was just in Rochester two weeks ago.
This happens all the time. Agents looking for a class and we were just in their area. We both missed out on an opportunity so, if you like live classroom insurance CE, it pays to plan ahead. We are coming to your area with good classes during your renewal and we'd love to see you, but it doesn't work great IF you don't schedule your insurance CE in advance.

One final item, we are offering a CYBER MONDAY discount on our online insurance CE classes. You can get all the details to get your savings HERE. I also hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend. I'm grateful for you. Be blessed.

 

 

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Comments are based on the personal experiences or opinions of Renee and may not reflect the objective of Bryan Ventures, Inc.

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