Many agents are beginning to understand the importance of insurance social media for creating and nurturing relationships, as well as for creating a long-term defensive strategy against the disintermediation threat posed by insurers, which I discussed in my post last week.

Having an insurance social media presence is one thing; researching and writing about things to post on Facebook, for instance, is the hard part, as one person commented to my post last week. In my November 7, 2011 post, “Seven Topic Ideas for Posting to Your Insurance Agency Facebook Page,” I listed several general topic ideas for insurance social media writers, such as providing insurance tips, supporting local client businesses, demonstrating community involvement and so on.  This time, though, I’m going to list several sources for story ideas.

1. Take advantage of the resources provided by non-profit organizations that  educate the public as part of their mission.

I’ve written about the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud as a great insurance social media resource for bizarre, comical and sometimes tragic tales of insurance fraudsters getting their comeuppance. You might call this insurance tabloid journalism except they’re true stories. In any case, people enjoy reading them.

For straightforward information on avoiding and preparing for adversity, FEMA is an excellent insurance social media resource. Their website is packed with information about every kind of natural disaster, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, landslides, tsunamis, wildfires and even home fires.  They also provide articles about technological hazards such as blackouts, hazardous material and household chemical emergencies.  You will also find articles on terrorist threats, including explosions and biological, chemical and radiological dispersion devices.

The Insurance Information Institute has a wealth of information on insurance topics.  Name a type of insurance coverage and they are likely to have an article, video and/or white paper on the subject.

Other useful non-profit resources:  American Red Cross and OSHA

2. The insurance press is a good source of information and sometimes entertaining stories, such as these recent articles:  “10 Most Outrageous Excuses for Arriving Late for Work,” produced by an insurance company media department, or “Top 10 States for Dog Bite Claims,” released by State Farm. You’ll find content like this in electronic editions of publications such as Insurance Journal, for example, which you can subscribe to for free.

Insurance Industry newsfeeds can be helpful, though you’ve got to turn over a lot of rocks to find that gem of a story. The subscriptions are free though:  Try Insurance Broadcasting and The Industry Radar. You can also sign up for RSS feeds directly from the major news release distribution services. These services each have an insurance RSS feed: PR Newswire,, BusinessWire, PRWeb and Marketwire.

3. The advantage of using industry resources is the detail and accuracy provided — and it’s economical. The disadvantage is that the information is often presented in language and format that may not be reader-friendly or sound like your voice. If you’re looking for interesting insurance content, check out SmartsPro Marketing’s Content Warehouse. It has 100s of articles, often including images you can use, that combine accuracy, detail and reader-friendly qualities at low per-article rates.
4. Find relevant regional and local stories with Google. Enter these terms in Google search:  “Your state or region” + Insurance; for example, enter “Florida insurance.”  Use Google Alerts to monitor your keywords on a daily basis. You’ll begin to recognize certain news sources, like insurance companies or research organizations, that you can depend on for quality content. Google can be the single most important tool for finding good insurance content for your social media pages.
5. An excellent source of local information is your local newspaper. Ask your paper for permission to link to articles from time to time. They’ll probably support the idea, since it’s a form of free advertising for them, especially when people click on the story and go to their website. Besides reporting on local fires and similar news, depending on what kinds of features your local paper covers, you could regularly link to stories about new businesses and so on.
6. The is not a news source but rather a methodology. Create a series based on a topic, and provide stories weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Here are some examples:
• Pet of the week — invite people to submit a photo of their favorite pet. Everybody with pets loves to see pictures of pets, especially their own. The winner gets a $10 gift certificate to PetSmart or something similar.
• App of the week — hundreds of new apps come out every week. Many are free or cost very little.  Here are a few to consider:  things to do in your area, Scrabble, where’s the cheapest gas in the area.
• Stupid insurance claim of the week. I already discussed this one.
• Partner/Business/Non-profit of the month or week.
• Have a contest. You could do a fundraiser for a local charity. Pledge $5 for every Facebook Like you get.
• Be the go to place for little league, kids soccer league or bowling team scores. You could also post scores for local school sports.
7. [Added November 14, 2014] My final resource suggestion is to link to articles published on The Insurance 411. Though these are copyrighted articles that can’t be republished without a subscription from SmartsPro Marketing, you can link to them. For example, link to an article about insuring a college bound student’s insurance needs away from home and introduce with link with a comment like “Is you son or daughter off to college this Fall? Will your insurance still apply when they’re away? Read this short article.”

The resources I’ve listed here are not going to write your insurance social media content for you, but at least they will get you started.  

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud has just published its annual Insurance Fraud Hall of Shame.  The dishonorable mentions in this list often make good material for news stories.

This a great way for the Coalition, founded in 1993 by a diverse group that includes insurers, consumer advocates and government agencies, to attract the attention of the general media.  

Some of incidents in the “No-Class of 2011” — such as the diamond merchants who staged a fraud by hiring robbers disguised as Hassidic Jews, and the DJ who had a couple of corrupt politicians help her cause flood damage to her home … on a sunny day — are comical. Many are tragic, like the amateur arsonist who died of third-degree burns, and the pastor who had a man shot so he could collect the life insurance.

Indeed, events like these are chronicled and dispatched to media by the Coalition throughout the year.

Some of these stories even find their way onto agent Facebook pages and insurance blogs. People like to read about “the bizarre plots, screwball twists, extreme schemes and worst-laid plans of insurance thieves.” And they make great cautionary tales.

As I was reading about these idiotic capers, it occurred to me that agent bloggers and social media directors might want to get on the Coalition’s mailing list.

So I clicked on their website’s newsroom, where I saw “Receive fraud news:  Stay on top of fraud news and trends by receiving our news material.” Great, just what I was looking for.

However, then I read:  “For accredited journalists only.” It’s even italicized on the webpage like that.

This touches on some controversial issues that generate a lot of talk in media circles, concerning the Internet age where anybody can seize a public platform to express themselves. Where do you draw the line in giving access to news sources when it comes to so-called “citizen journalists” — including bloggers and Facebook posters like you? And to what extent do “citizen journalists” deserve all the First Amendment freedom of speech defenses that are available to big media journalists?

I don’t think we need to deal with the second issue here. After all, insurance agents or their social media directors are not trying to use this material for investigative reporting. They may simply want access.

And what’s wrong with that? I would argue that insurance agents communicate with the consumer with more credibility than the mainstream press. If the Coalition wants to get its message out, it seems to me that it may be passing up a great opportunity by limiting the access to their material only to accredited journalists.

Agents have been aware for quite a while now that their business model is being threatened. And there has been no more threatening battleground for the past ten years than the Internet. Traditionally, people have bought insurance from agents who live and work in their community, whether they are direct writers or independent agents.

As we know, the Internet has a tendency to disintermediate. Who needs a bookstore when you have Amazon? Who needs Blockbuster when there’s Netflix? Who needs the newspaper want ads when there’s Craig’s List?

What’s more, companies like Geico and Progressive actively promote the notion that auto and home insurance are just commodities; same for life insurance. Why go to the trouble of making an appointment with an agent to discuss the purchase of a commodity? Just get online and buy the cheapest policy, right? Or maybe it’s not as simple as that. So if you want to buy insurance without the aid of an agent, what do you do?

The answer is social media, says Terry Golesworthy, president of The Customer Respect Group, a consulting firm that works with many large insurance companies. Getting advice about buying insurance is now just like getting advice about what kind of TV to buy. We ask our social media friends.

The challenge for insurance companies — and agents — is to become part of the conversation.  To sell insurance today, you must become engaged with people at the social media level, says Golesworthy in his January 20 blog post: “It is Not How You Want to Sell, It Is About How the Consumer Wants to Buy That Counts.”

This is exactly what insurance companies are now doing. They are engaging or at least attempting to engage on Facebook and other social media. Agents do have an advantage here, though. Insurers tend to have lousy listening skills. As Golesworthy points out, too often insurance companies mistake content for engagement. Instead of providing disaster preparedness tips, they explain how homeowners policies work; that is, they don’t cover flood.

He recommends that insurance companies listen to the customer instead. This, he says, “for most insurers, requires a new content marketing strategy focused on addressing consumer concerns and not on product features.”

So obviously there is a kind of war going on on the Internet between insurers and agents. And the principal battleground right now is social media. If insurance companies can succeed, there may be disintermediation on the scale we’ve seen in the newspaper, travel or retail book businesses.

The challenge agents face today is how to beat the insurance companies at the social engagement game. And there’s every reason to believe they can do it.

Some companies, like Acuity Insurance, with their Facebook sites targeted to specialty groups like truckers, contractors and retailers are already beginning to figure this out.   Fortunately, most companies are not this nimble. In niche markets, too, the playing field between insurers and agents is somewhat leveled.

Still, agents shouldn’t be comforted.  We always say it’s a people business.  Agents need to focus on using social media tools — or concede this battleground to the insurers.