To The Editor:
I was greatly disappointed in Jack Bobos column, "Why IMSA?" in the June 10 issue of NU. There were many statements made without consideration to the facts.
Mr. Bobo made reference to "52 major categories of market function…" This classification was clearly his own. IMSA contains six principles, 24 questions, and many more indicators, used as determinants of compliance. These represent a broad area of assessor review, including home office and field, and move beyond "market function."
I was surprised that Mr. Bobo referred to assessors as auditors. Since he was in IMSA training, I would have expected him to recognize the many differences between an audit process and the IMSA assessment.
I was deeply concerned by Mr. Bobos statement that he was unaware of any assessor with a marketing background ever being selected by a company. I have more than 25 years in marketing, including field training with a career distribution, regional representative for both PPGA and brokerage distributions, president of a marketing organization for 10 years, and an additional seven years as Compliance Officer for a multiple-distribution insurer.
In addition, I have personally assessed more IMSA-member companies than any other assessor–including the accounting industry. My firm has worked closely with more than 25% of the current IMSA membership. That sharing of experience among clients is very valuable in "raising the bar" for ethics in the insurance industry.
Further, while I cannot address why clients of an accounting firm select an accountant, to charge that membership may be granted because of the relationship between company and assessor is a discredit to the industry he has represented for so many years. First, understand that IMSA is a voluntary organization. As such, companies expect to receive value for the money they spend. This comes from many areas in IMSA–sharing of best practices, changes to policies and procedures and a broad overview of internal and field practices.
Mr. Bobo has yet to "meet an agent who acknowledges that the existence of IMSA has made any kind of difference." If that is true, it is hardly an indicator of the failure of the program. Im not sure what he learned in the training that would be an agent measure of a difference attributed to IMSA. IMSA is a company program with agent benefits. Yes, it impacts upon agents, but not nearly to the extent it impacts upon home offices. Certainly, our clients provide better communication, both home office and field, better training, more rigorous review of advertising, better handling of complaints and better communications with customers to reduce the number of issues becoming a complaint. Will an agent say any of this is because of IMSA? It is not likely, but Ive been in many home offices where IMSA clearly has made a difference.
Finally, Mr. Bobo claims not to have seen a visible result. What does he want to see? Fewer complaints are not visible to him. Fewer lawsuits are not visible. Better communication and training is certainly not visible. Even action on replacements that can often be attributed to IMSA may not be visible to him, but these changes for the better exist today in our industry.
