President's February 2017 Communication

Fri, 03/03/2017 - 12:01

Hi Everyone,

A little late, but wanted say thanks to all those who attended the February Luncheon.  We welcomed Jim Basilone from The Institutes and he covered briefly the changing continuing education landscape we are experiencing within the CPCU.  A couple notable items from the his presentation were the availability of the Knowledge Center within The Institutes/CPCUs combined website and the growing interest and support being seen from the industry to attract new and younger talent. 

The Knowledge Center (which can be found at www.cpcusociety.org under the EDUCATION & EVENTS Tab > Knowledge Center) is a great resource for to see your continuing education status and view webinars and news articles that can automatically be viewed to provide you with CE credit.  I would suggest signing in first at the web page to make the transition to the Knowledge Center easier.  You will find that this will be personalized for you and you can see all credits you have earned as well as recent webinars, articles, etc. that you can be viewed to gain CE credit.  There is a lot of great webinars (usually 1 hour in length) conducted by professionals on each subject offered.  Articles are also great quick ways to stay connected on current topics and get credit as well toward your CPCU (usually 0.5 credit hour).  All these online activities through the site our automatically reported if you ENROLL, so they definitely are making it very attainable to reach the 24 credits hours targeted for all CPCU members.  If you had any specific questions on the website or the new CE program, let me know.

Also, as Jim had mentioned at our luncheon, there are expected to be up to 400,000 positions to fill by 2020 in the insurance business.  And reports show that only near 4-5% of millennials express interest in working in our industry.  I feel that we as leaders at our perspective companies will continue to play a critical role to educate and help our industry enlist the best and brightest.  Companies, as well as independent organizations, have recognized this need to fill the talent gap we may experience.   Many initiatives have been created in the last couple of years to not only attract new employees, but educate them on the careers that can be found within the insurance business.  Websites like www.InsureMyPath.org and www.insurancecareerstrifecta.org focus heavily on educating our younger generation on the opportunities that exist in the insurance field and the career trifecta of our insurance (it’s stable, it’s rewarding, and it’s limitless).  I would recommend viewing these websites to stay current on how leaders in our industry are targeting and assisting our younger generation to join our business.  If nothing else, be able to direct others to these sites if they show interest in insurance so they can see for themselves the opportunities and investment being made for our future.

See you all later this month,

Beau Barnum CPCU
Western Michigan CPCU Society Chapter – President


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