I have been out the office the past couple of weeks. I married Shay Helmbock on March 21st. She is a 4th grade teacher and varisty girls soccer coach at The First Academy in Orlando, Florida. We have dated for the past 3 years and had a destination wedding in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. We also went on our honeymoon in Costa Rica at a fun resort in the jungle. The wedding was on the beach and here are a couple of pictures from it:

I’m back in the office and have been able to catch up over the past week from the time I missed. I’ll get back to posting more insurance related agent articles shortly. In the meanwhile, let me know if there is anything I can do to help your landscaping business or if you have any questions or topics for me to discuss in an article.

Chris Oakley is leaving the BearWise Landscapers division of Black Bear Insurance Agency to work for a local landscaping business in Orlando, Florida. Chris has written many great articles on this website for Florida landscapers. We are leaving all of those articles online for our clients and prospective clients to still read. Chris has been a tremendous help in launching the BearWise Landscapers insurance program and adding valuable services to Florida landscapers. We look forward to continually building on this foundation.

The service you receive at BearWise Landscapers will continue to be exceptional. We are proud to have Jake Schrimsher join the team at this insurance program directed towards landscaping businesses. I’ll write another article about Jake’s experience and you can look forward to reading articles from him in the future.

BearWise Landscapers is a division of Black Bear Insurance Agency, Inc. We are proud to be an independent agency with access to multiple insurance carriers. We are also proud members of the Florida Association of Insurance Agents (FAIA). Here is some more information about FAIA:

The Florida Association of Insurance Agents is the oldest insurance organization, of any type, in the state of Florida. Officially organized in 1904 as the Florida Local Underwriters Association, its roots go back to 1896 when two Ocala agents first banded together to protect their customers and themselves from unfair practices by large insurance companies. Our current name was adopted in 1941.

Organized in Jacksonville, FAIA moved its headquarters first to Tampa and then, in 1971, to Tallahassee to facilitate communications with state insurance regulators and lawmakers. Our 14-member board of directors selects a president responsible for managing the organization, which today serves as a central information source for more than 1,700 independent agencies employing over 17,000 licensed individuals.

In total, FAIA member independent agents represent all but a handful of companies licensed in this state, but…they are not employees of those companies. They are independent contractors, free to recommend to you the coverage and policies of any company with which they choose to be appointed. This mode of operation has proven so successful that today independent agents sell and service over 85 percent of Florida’s non self-insured commercial premium and over half of the personal lines premium volume, including auto and homeowners. Theirs is a relationship-based business built on providing you with the widest range of options at the best possible price.

In addition to a broad range of education programs and public relations initiatives, FAIA provides technology assistance (including web design) to members and each year hosts the industry’s most highly-attended convention, featuring presentations from industry experts, networking opportunities, and numerous education classes presented by a well known staff of instructors.

Today, FAIA is a nonprofit state trade association affiliated with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, Inc., (IIABA) and 22 local boards conveniently located throughout Florida. Our goal is to serve insurance consumers by encouraging a healthy and competitive insurance marketplace. This is achieved, in part, through education, legislation, and other programs that assist independent agents (those who represent more than one company) in helping their clients and consumers find the best coverage at the best price.

FAIA Contact Information:

Street Address:
3159 Shamrock South
Tallahassee, Florida 32309

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 12129
Tallahassee, Florida 32317-2129

Telephone: 850-893-4155
Fax: 850-668-2852
Website: http://www.faia.com

In the previous article, I mentioned some postcards that we are sending out to landscapers across Florida. Below are images of the front and back side of these postcards (click on the images for the full-size view):

Our goal in these postcards is simply to make landscapers aware of our insurance programs and this website which provides loads or practical information specifically for landscaping businesses. We want to assist more landscapers across Florida with their insurance needs and these postcards are a nice way to spread the word about our services. Our branding partner, Matchstic, designed these postcards to let them know about the free services and information available on our website.

Once these business owners visit our website, we are certain that they will find this information helpful to understanding the insurance needs and concerns of their business operations. One of the most exciting features of this website is the online quote request form that makes it quick and easy for landscapers to share their business information with our agency so we can provide a fast turnaround time on their insurance quotes.

We are a couple of weeks into 2009 and I hope everybody had a great holiday. We have been working hard a few package policies where we have combined general liability, commercial auto, and equipment floaters into the same policy. These landscapers benefit from easy payment plans, few overlaps in coverage, and the ability to build a stronger relationship with one insurance carrier.

We are also putting together some postcards to send out to landscapers across the state of Florida. We want to run a little advertisement to spread the word about our specialized insurance service for the landscaping industry. If you know of any landscaping businesses that could benefit from our services, please refer them to us or contact us with their information. We are excited about our recent growth at BearWise Landscapers and we look forward to serving more landscapers across the state of Florida and as we grow into other states. 2009 will be a great year for us and we hope the same for your landscaping business as well.

As a reminder, remember that there are new workers compensation rates for 2009.

We receive many compliments about our branding of BearWise and design quality of the website and brochures. We put a lot of thought into the program and wanted quality pieces that would demonstrate the attention to detail that we give to our landscaping clients. However, we cannot take full credit for this work. Our agents have a great understanding of insurance, but their graphic design skills are less than exceptional. We worked with a company out of Atlanta named Matchstic to create the BearWise logo and all of our materials.

Matchstic is a premier design company that does work on many large projects and for a variety of businesses. We were very pleased with the service and exceptional work they provided and we highly recommend them. Here is an overview of the work they did for BearWise Landscapers. Matchstic specializes in creating brand identities that will standout and they allow your business to have a consistent image that differentiates the products and services you offer from those of your competitors. Here is a quote from the Matchstic website:

“Branding is all about mindset. It’s what people think, feel, and say about you. It’s why they will or won’t do business with you. So we always begin by thinking strategically and looking for ways to define your brand in an honest, fresh, and engaging way. Once we define what makes your brand standout, we begin the process of creating a visual identity that effectively communicates who you are to the rest of the world.”

What does the name and identity of your landscaping business say to prospective clients? It is very important that the identity and reputation of your landscaping business is reflective of the quality services that you offer.

The same thing is true for BearWise Landscapers. We created a brand that would reflect the quality insurance service our agents provide to landscapers. We did not want a flashy logo and brochures that gave false promises to prospective clients. Our focus is and will always be on the service we provide and we created a brand identity that would reflect our specialization and attention to detail. At BearWise Landscapers, we look forward to the opportunity of having a positive impact on your landscaping business and also look forward to earning your trust as a client.

BearWise Landscapers is a division of Black Bear Insurance Agency. We are very excited to launch this new insurance service for landscapers. In this agent article, I would like to briefly explain why BearWise Landscapers was created and the goal we have for this service.

As an independent insurance agency, Black Bear has the ability to provide insurance quotes to businesses from a number of different insurance carriers. Insurance agents typically provide insurance to all types of businesses and their primary sales method is through referrals and relationships they develop. While this has been successful, we feel it restricts the agent from becoming an expert in a certain group of clients that have similar characteristics. We feel that if the insurance agent picked an industry of businesses and specialized in providing insurance services to those businesses, then there would be potential to provide many value-added services.

With this thought process, our agency created the BearWise brand to identify our divisions of insurance agents that specialize in the insurance products needed by businesses in a select industry. As a business owner, we wanted to communicate to you that BearWise agents are different than your typical insurance agent and that these agents are specialists in their particular industry. With BearWise Landscapers, Chris Oakley (and the other agents that will be added to this division of our agency) only works with businesses that maintain lawns and gardens, install landscapes, trim trees, and any combination of these operations.

The goal of BearWise is to not only have insurance agents that specialize in providing insurance products to businesses within a select industry, but also to continually add valuable services to these businesses. In other words, our goal is to continually look for ways to assist landscapers with their insurance related business decisions. The primary way we decided to reach this goal is through freely providing loads of insurance related information to landscapers on our website and through our agents. Over time we look to provide more value-added services and as these additional services are made available to clients of BearWise Landscapers, they will be listed on the services section of the website. Feel free to contact us if you have ideas of helpful insurance related services we can provide to your landscaping business.

We look forward to providing quality insurance products and services to landscaping businesses for many years to come. We appreciate you taking the time to visit our website and we hope you find it to be a helpful tool to understanding the insurance needs of your business. Feel free to contact Chris Oakley with any questions you may have. Also, keep in mind that if you enjoy the services of BearWise Landscapers, the greatest compliment you can give is to refer another landscaping business to look over our website. Thank you.

Welcome to BearWise Landscapers!!!

Let me be the first to say we are so glad you discovered BearWise Landscapers and we hope that this website will prove to be a valuable asset to you and your company.

When we started kicking around the idea of providing a service targeting a specific industry; for some reason landscaping kept popping up everywhere we looked. The more we researched the landscaping industry, the more we liked the opportunity to do something that we felt had not been done before in the insurance business. I have always been passionate about the landscaping industry and we feel like it is an industry overlooked and under serviced in Florida. We understand the value that the landscaping industry adds to Florida and the positive impact it has on the Florida economy. We want to partner with the landscaping community and serve you all as you continue to grow and serve Florida.

Our goal at BearWise Landscapers is to better inform landscapers on the insurance issues that impact your businesses and to minimize the exposures that put your businesses at risk. We also have spent considerable time building relationships with our insurance carriers and sharing the vision we have for BearWise Landscapers. These relationships allow us to be very efficient and extremely cost effective in the insurance quotes we deliver to you. This saves you time, saves you money and provides you a peace of mind knowing your business is protected at the end of the day.

I would like to extend a big “thank you” to all the insurance companies that believe in BearWise Landscapers and have bent over backwards to help us release this service to the public. We truly appreciate the continual support and the constant flow of ideas being provided by you all.

Once again, welcome to BearWise Landscapers! Please feel free to call or email with any questions you may have. We are here to serve you.