Obvious Prediction #3: This economy will continue to batter businesses and consumers (your clients and prospects) in the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The recovery will be miserably long and slow. And these are the kinds of things you – the retail agent – will deal during while the patient is groaning in the recovery room:

1. An increasing number of drivers to drop insurance.  According to the respected Insurance Research Council, for every 1% increase in unemployment, there’s a 3/4% DECREASE in insured autos.

2. That will bring the number of uninsured drivers up to a whopping 16% in 2010.

3. 28% of those with auto insurance reported shopping for lower premiums when they normally would not do so.  (Why is it that so many agents KNOW – for personal lines and small commercial lines coverage – that their “sales force” is the CSR(s), and yet they install hardly ANY of the normal support systems for sales?!  No or weak scripting.  No or weak monitoring.  No or weak coaching.  No or weak coaching.  No or weak hiring practices.  Yipes.)

4. Of course, payrolls to shrink and businesses to roll over and die.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of analysts – including the esteemed macro-economist, John Mauldin – predict a “double-dip” recession, as political leaders “spend our future” into an inevitable repeat-downturn with trillion dollar stimulus packages – and follow it up with tax INCREASES on the job-creators?  Hence, as they say, the current malaise-economy may very well be the “new economy” for years and years to come.

Why have I been blabbering on about the BAD news?  I just got of the phone with a terrific client – Dennis Zubler – who continues go grow his agency at double digits despite the soft market, recessionary blues, internet pressures and mega-competitor marketing.  And he told me he makes a point of NOT letting the whining of other agents or the doomsday reporting of the media affect his thinking.  For Dennis, it’s always, “Next!  What’s or NEXT action to move us forward.”

With that in mind, let me be perfectly clear about something.  I’m not delivering my analysis on the coming hard times to dampen your spirits…but to URGE you to take action, to take more of it and to take it faster.  Money rewards speed.

In an upcoming posting, I going to share my PREDICTION about what this means to the retail agent – and an Action Plan on what you MUST do about it.  Burying our heads in the sand is NOT productive.  Being aware of the challenges – and putting together a specific action plan is the ONLY thing that smart agents will insist on.  Strategy + Action = Success.