Last week I had the pleasure of attending an independent agent seminar presented by Hales & Co. and hosted by National Underwriter and AA&B on “creating and enhancing shareholder value.”

Don’t let the Hales tag fool you: although M&A was a large part of the discussion, it was by no means the only topic. In fact, the all-day event pretty much ran the gamut of all the challenges independent agents face, from complying with the new healthcare reform law and other legislation to building a stronger brand.

The main message I came away with was this: Being an independent insurance agent is not for wimps. Not only are you stuck competing in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression, but you also have to worry about complying with state and federal regulations, finding new business, tracking your insurers’ financial stability, and on top of everything else, staying on top of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

And now, to add insult to injury, you’re also a target for professional wrestlers.

In a story that sounds like something from the Onion, last week the St. Petersburg Times reported that Hulk Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) has sued his insurance broker, Wells Fargo Insurance Services, claiming the broker should have offered him an umbrella policy, which would have protected him from lawsuits when his son crashed his car, catastrophically injuring a passenger in 2007. Although he had a third-party auto liability policy with a $250,000 limit, Hulk recently paid a confidential settlement in the accident, which the broker lawsuit seeks to recover.

The case goes to the heart of the broker-as-consultant issue, which holds the profession to a higher standard of ethics and expertise than a mere policy-pusher. According to the Times article:

Didn’t Bollea have a personal responsibility to investigate on his own what he needed to do to protect his multimillion-dollar net worth?

“Not if you put your trust in your broker,” Florin (Hulk’s lawyer) said.

“This isn’t a personal responsibility case,” Florin said. “This is a professional responsibility case.”

 Every agency consultant, including those at the Hales event, extols the virtues of independent agents and brokers differentiating themselves in a tough market by becoming more professional and consultative. Unfortunately, as the Hulk case demonstrates, that professionalism can be a double-edged sword. If you’ve cut corners to survive the soft market and the recession, that frugality could come back to haunt you if you’re not covering all the bases with your agency services.

 As the industry continues to evolve in sophistication, don’t be surprised if you start seeing more of these types of cases.

And it would be really cool if they could be settled with a cage match.

Four grand.

That’s how much it cost me to get back surgery — for my dachshund, Keaton.

No, I’m not nuts. Both I and my living room rug are fully aware that Keaton is a dog, and I’m not the kind of person who buys him holiday-themed doggie outfits, or any outfits, for that matter. But when an animal that’s part of your family is dragging his hindquarters and unable to walk, what would you do? If he was elderly, I might have had him put to sleep, but there’s plenty of life in the old guy yet.

Pet insurance, you say? Nope. Doxies are notorious for back problems and to to top it off, Keaton is a rescue dog, so we have no idea exactly how old he is or who his parents were. Pet insurance wasn’t an option.

Animals today can get better medical treatment than people in Third World countries. The clinic that did Keaton’s surgery has 9 vets on staff, and specialties like dermatology and opthamology. They even offer acupuncture, chiropractic, herbology and water and treadmill exercises for dogs with arthritis and other conditions.

If all of this seems off topic, it might be, except for a recently released Harvard study indicating that medical bills play a role in 62 percent of bankruptcies

 (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fi-medical-bankruptcy4-2009jun04,0,4495714.story).

The really scary thing is that 78 percent of those people who filed bankruptcy had health insurance, which obviously doesn’t cover everything.

Part of what makes modern medicine so wonderful (and so expensive) is the cost of diagnosis and preventative treatment. A big chunk of Keaton’s hospital bill came from the cost of the spinal MRI, which determined exactly where the vet would operate.

The availability of doggie MRIs is just one indication of how far medical science has advanced. My mother died of colon cancer in 1988. Today, an unpleasant but routine procedure allows doctors to remove precancerous cells before they turn into anything worse. If this screening had been available 20 years ago, my mother might have lived to see her grandchildren.

A November 2008 study by the Brookings Institution  weighs the problem of how trying to squeeze costs out of the health care system could result in a decrease in medical innovation. Mortality rates for cardiovascular disease have decreased 43 percent between 1950 and 2005, a direct reflection of medical innovations. Who wants to make the call to cut those costs? Not me.

http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/~/media/Files/events/2008/1117_realhealthcare/1117_strategicreview.pdf

A lot of people in our industry are concerned about health care reform. I’m no fan of national health systems, which haven’t seemed to have worked very well in other industrialized countries. On the other hand, after experiencing how expensive it can be to take care of a sick dog, I’d hate to be in a similar uninsured position if the sick person was myself or one of my kids.

Sorry, no answers here to what we should do about health care. I’m just really glad I’m not Max Baucus.

Everyone is worried about healthcare, whether it’s the cost, the coverage, or how legislastive reform will change the way we’re used to dealing with it. Just yesterday, after meeting with representatives of all factions of the healthcare equation, President Obama reiterated his commitment to moving a healthcare reform bill through Congress before its August recess. Details are sketchy, other than suggestions that the plan could center on expanding Medicare to cover the uninsured (even though the recession has both Medicare and Social Security on the ropes).

Healthcare reform is a huge, complex issue that’s tough to get your arms around. But a recent New York Times article brought it down to a more human scale, and provides a hint of what could be in store if Washington takes a more active role in healthcare issues.

The article dealt with Congress’s plans to “give employers sweeping authority to reward employees for healthy behavior, including better diet, more exercise, weight loss and smoking cessation.”

Federal rules currently limit what employers and insurance companies can do to “incentivize” employees to focus on prevention and wellness. Several proposals are afloat that would rescind these limitations as part of whatever federal healthcare reform program gets passed.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, right? According to the article, employers currently face some confusing tax, labor and insurance laws when it comes to offering wellness programs. It only makes sense to introduce some standardization to these well-meaning programs.

What bothers me about this move is the potential to punish rather than encourage — and the not-so-subtle subtext of lifestyle discrimination.

Everybody knows that prevention programs are far less costly to administer than having to treat an illness directly arising from poor lifestyle choices.  But somewhere in the inevitable gray area in between lies the touchy issue of personal freedom — you know, that pursuit-of-happiness stuff that’s written into the Declaration of Independence.  

When it comes to the workplace, we’re already living in a recessionary, layoff-driven “buyers’ market,” with most states giving employers at-will rights to hire and fire. Employees still left standing in today’s job market are dancing as fast as they can, picking up the slack for their laid-off brethren. It doesn’t seem right that on top of everything else, their employers can levy financial penalties for unhealthy practices, either on or off the job.

And I’m not talking about shooting black-tar heroin or killing a quart of Finlandia before work. Clarian Health, an Indiana hospital chain, made headlines several years ago when it announced plans to deduct as much as $30 per paycheck for workers it deemed obese.

We’re living in a culture where We-TV can get away with “I Want to Save Your Life” — an “Intervention”-type program that puts overeating on the same level as drug or alcohol abuse.  In this sort of environment, it isn’t that far-fetched to think your employer could send a skeletal guy in Spandex charging into your office to make sure your carbs are curbed.

It seems to me that this sort of Big Nannyism would ultimately be bad for employee retention and productivity, not to mention opening the floodgates for some really nasty EPL lawsuits.

If employers want their workforce to focus more on the carrot than the steak, they should use the carrot instead of the stick. And if Congress wants to help them, legislators should be careful not to introduce measures that could make it easier to punish workers instead of helping them.