Today is the second to last day of our internship and man has it flown by.  I guess that’s a good thing, because it shows that we all stayed busy and had some fun learning the industry. 

I have to present a new niche today to the BSD and GBS producers and branch managers.  This is my “final” for the internship.  This is the last chance I get to really impress and show what I have learned these past 9 weeks.  I think that my presentation and the information I have gathered could be beneficial to the producers in the branch, so I am looking forward to presenting. 

I look forward to hearing all the success we all had on our regional project in a few minutes.  By the way Jura has saying how good we have all done, it sounds like to me that we have surpassed the previous interns.  GO 09 interns!!!

- Kevin

Seems like yesterday we were all in Itasca getting to know each other and learning about Gallagher, and now we’re a week away from saying goodbye.  Well hopefully some jobs come about for us, but the internship is over.  The next week and a half I have to continue making my prospect calls, present a new niche to both GBS and BSD in the Fresno office, and anything else the producers throw at me.  Lately I have been organizing files for a new client and made a powerpoint presentation for the producers to present a new option to their clients.  I am learning a lot each week and am expecting to learn a lot about the niche I am presenting on.  I have been looking into the vineyards around the central valley and noticed we don’t have very many if any.  To me that seems like a niche perfect for the central valley and a beneficial market to go after.  We are surrounded by farming and vineyards and the producers have the farming niche pretty much covered, so hopefully this will be helpful to them.  Look foward to hearing from everyone tomorrow!

- Kevin

The Fresno office has been busy this week finish organizing a casino we picked up recently.  I have been printing reports and organizing them for our Customer Service Manager.  I went on the meeting with them prior to this to meet the new CFO and show them what Gallagher is planning to do for them.  The intern coordinator had me finish our Disaster Recovery Plan yesterday, as well as me making cold calls.  Cold calling has been successful for me and that is very encouraging to an intern hoping to get into the brokerage industry.  I went on two renewals this week as well.  Every time I go on meetings with clients i get something new out of it.  Whether it is going with different producers and seeing how they communicate to their clients, or just the different personalities clients have and how to get through to them.  It was good hearing all the approaches everyone is taking towards getting renewals and information about leads yesterday, and reading Melanie’s Best Practices.  Switching it up and trying new approaches while cold calling makes it more fun and not so tedious.

- Kevin

The past two weeks have been the true ice breaker in the insurance field for me.  Making cold calls was a great way to see what the future would be like and the difficulties that a new broker experiences.   I have been traveling all over the central valley with the brokers in the office on renewels and client meetings.  The point that clicked all week in Itasca was the open door policy.  The Fresno office definitely has this.  Being confortable enough to walk into any of the brokers and the branch manager’s office and ask maybe the dumbest question to them, but important for me is a nice feeling.  In the process of searching for internships, I was always worried I would be asked to do nothing important and just file paperwork for everyone in the office, while not learning anything about the industry.  Well that is the furthest thing from what is happing for me.  And that’s it for me this time.

- Kevin

I am Kevin from the Fresno, CA branch.  this past week was a lot of fun yet very informative.  I am a finance major so had zero knowledge about insurance before starting on June 8th.  I learned a lot of the acronyms and basic insurance in the educational readings, but the orientation helped me understand things much more.  I look forward to putting what I learned to use for the next 6 weeks.

- Kevin