PIA Membership Benefits
Member Benefits
In addition to being a part of a dedicated community of other professional independent agents, your PIA membership offers an unmatched value in tools and resources specifically tailored to help advance your agency.
Agency Management & Planning Resources
When a crisis hits, it’s the planning and preparation that really counts. Introducing Ready For Everything – a crisis information hub brought to you by The PIA Partnership. Our Ready For Everything toolkit gives agents resources on planning, remote working, and employee and customer communications. We’ve curated and organized a host of industry articles, videos and podcasts, and provided key takeaways in an effort to make it as easy as possible for insurance agencies to be more prepared – when the next crisis hits.
At PIA, our mission is to help agents, like you, throughout your career. We have developed the PIA Blueprint for Agency Success to provide materials and resources that can take independent insurance agents from start-up to sustained success.
Sections of the Blueprint include:
Business Planning - addresses insurance agency start-up considerations from formation of the business entity to insurance licensing to budgeting and finance to branding
Growth Strategy - outlines agency automation, producer development and operational policies, procedures, and workflows
Agency Continuity - provides templates for business continuity planning, disaster planning, and leadership development
Whether you are planning for the eventual sale of your agency, planning for the unexpected, or simply want to value your agency, PIA’s Agency Journey Mapping program will put you on the right path. We’ll help you understand the challenges and best practices of agency ownership transfer, so you can create a perpetuation/succession plan for your agency. And you’ll receive access to dozens of tools to help you do it.
But I'm not ready to sell my agency!
You make decisions every day that set the stage for your options long-term. Agency Journey Mapping helps you see the impact of your actions today on your agency’s value, ability to respond to new opportunities, and preparation for the unexpected. The program addresses succession and perpetuation planning. But it’s not only for agents headed for the exit. It’s so much more. It is designed to give agency owners – at every stage – control of their future by investing in a little planning today.
Step 1: Attend live or on-demand seminar.
Step 2: Access a library of resources.
Step 3: Develop a customized plan for YOUR agency.
Our 3-part toolkit will help you make the most of today’s digital solutions. You can use it to: assess your virtual readiness; decide which technologies are right for you; calculate ROI on the solutions you choose; select vendors; apply best practices for maximum results; and learn from other agencies.
Cyber 101 was created to help educate agents and their clients about the most common cyber risks faced by small and mid-sized businesses as well as the business practices and insurance coverages that can reduce those risks.
Looking for guidance on agency agreements?
PIA offers a free agency agreement review service for PIA members.
To use PIA's agency agreement review services, first read the material in the Program Detail portion of this web page so you understand PIA's process. Then complete the online form in the Get Started section.
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Employer Resources
IdealTraits is the go-to hiring tool for insurance agencies across America. If you are having trouble finding top talent, or you would like to improve your hiring strategy, IdealTraits may be for you. This new PIA program ensures agents can use a comprehensive tool to hire top performers for their agencies.
Step 1 - Post Jobs: Build the best job postings with versatile templates for ZipRecruiter, Google for Jobs, Indeed, Glassdoor, and 100+ job boards.
Step 2 - Applicant Tracking: View resumes, comment, rate, organize, and move your candidates through hiring stages--all on the IdealTraits platform!
Step 3 - Send Pre-Hire Assessments: Pre-screen candidates to predict job performance, all from within the system!
Step 4 - Identify and Hire: Use assessment results to identify strengths and weaknesses and hire the best candidate.
Post your job openings on the PIAVADC website. Agency and Company members can take advantage of this free service. Simply fill out the form on our website and it will be displayed for three months.
Partnering with The National Alliance, the AIMS Society, and FISCE, plus hot topics at the Annual Convention, PIAVADC offers over 200 options each year, including pre-licensing, ethics, LIfe & Health, and E&O prevention. Learn more
- Courses
- Course Schedules
- Registration (search by keyword)
Protect your agency from bad hires and high turnover with the Omnia Assessment.
In just 10 minutes or less, our behavioral assessment tool gives you the insight to take the guesswork out of personnel decisions. Whether you are hiring a new employee, deciding on future roles for current employees, team building or creating a succession plan for your agency, Omnia can help.
Winning@Talent is a 3-part toolkit featuring intuitive tools that take agency employers through a simple journey that starts with determining if their agency is well positioned to attract quality candidates and ends with a happy, productive employee.
Part 1 - Are You Ready to Recruit?, focuses on helping agencies assess whether they are ready to recruit. In this section, we help agency owners and managers assess their employer brand, provide tools to help them build and strengthen it, and offer best practices on how to make it resonate across communication channels and social networks.
Part 2 - Sourcing, Recruiting and Hiring, focuses on sourcing potential hiring prospects, recruiting them into your agency and ultimately hiring them. This section offers resources and best practices to help agency owners and managers find, screen, interview and evaluate candidates in ways that will help them reduce their time to fill key positions, build their talent pipeline and meet long-term recruiting goals.
Part 3 - Retaining Your Best Employees, focuses on how agencies can retain their best employees because employee retention is vital to growing any agency. This section provides best practices and resources that agency owners and managers can share with their employees to help those employees with their own career development.
Agency Marketing Resources
Each summer PIA publishes the PIA Agency Marketing Guide which helps PIA members stay ahead of the curve when it comes to marketing their services in the modern insurance marketplace.
PIA has an extensive collection of print advertisements that PIA members can run in local publications, customized with their agency logo and contact information and (optionally) a company logo. Most ads are available in both English and Spanish, a variety of sizes, and color as well as black and white. They can also be printed for use as flyers or as inserts in publications.
For more information please contact Kevin Kowar at kevin@piavadc.com or 804-486-4218.
PIA members can access direct mail and digital advertising services in the PIA DMV. Customizable postcard templates are available to use with the USPS Every Door Direct Mail Program and Targeted Direct Mail. PIA members can maximize their impact and reach by adding-on targeted digital advertising to their order.
PIA Design & Print offers a collaborative design experience tailored for small businesses, insurance agencies and associations.
Our talented team specializes in print and digital media design that's engaging and effective.
- Logo design
- Ad design
- Flyers
- Magazines
- Brochures
- Trade show displays
- Social media graphics
- Newsletters
Insurance Products for Your Agency
Every business that uses the Internet, accepts credit cards or uses a system network needs cyber insurance.
- Does your business accept credit card payments?
- Does your business bank online?
- Does your business use Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?
- Does your business store sensitive customer or employee data?
PIA cyber insurance is offered through ABA Insurance Services and Great American E&S Insurance Company (rated A+ by A.M. Best). ABA Insurance Services’ history with cyber insurance dates to 2001 and with deep institutional knowledge offers the coverage and claims expertise needed to protect against today’s exposures.
One of the absolute best benefits of PIAVA/DC membership is access to its E&O insurance program designed exclusively for independent agents.
Professional Liability (E&O) insurance provides insurance agents protection against claims that the agent becomes legally obligated to pay as a result of an error or omission in his/her professional work, as well as defense costs regardless of whether the agency is at fault. Also known as Errors and Omissions insurance, this coverage is critical to your agency business, and generally required by insurance companies before agency appointments can be secured. PIA Insurance Services, Inc. has top-rated companies - Utica National, Liberty Mutual, CITA Insurance Services, US Risk and several other carriers - which can customize an errors and omissions insurance policy for you that is affordable and effective.
Contact Lisa Harmon to learn more: lisa@piavadc.com, 804-264-2582.
Provide Basic Life Insurance of up to $25,000 per eligible employee. Each Active Full‐Time Employee of a participating Employer working 30 or more hours per week, except any person working on a temporary or seasonal basis.
Learn More About Basic Life and AD&D
Offer additional Group Supplemental & Dependent Life Insurance. Coverage up to $250,000 per employee.
Learn More
Offer Long Term Disability benefits to your Employees. Benefits up to 60% of covered earnings, up to a maximum benefit of $6,000 per month. 90-day and 150-day Elimination Period Options.
Learn More and Get a Quote
Umbrella Liability provides additional coverage when the limits of insurance on an underlying policy are exceeded. For instance, if your agency has $1,000,000 coverage under your E&O policy and you have a claim settlement for $1,500,000, the umbrella policy would pick up the additional amount. Umbrella Liability policies also add coverage to General Liability, Hired and Non-owned Auto Liability, and Employer's Liability for a single premium, and applies to your E&O policy as well. PIA Insurance Services, Inc. has a top-rated carrier - Penn National - which can tailor an Umbrella Liability policy for you that is effective and affordable.
For more information contact Lisa Harmon: lisa@piavadc.com or 804-486-4224.
Insurance Products to Sell
The same standard coverage that is available to your agency, is also available to your clients. The need for cyber insurance is real. Cyber insurance protects businesses from computer, network and Internet-based risks. The policy covers both first and third-party losses.
Every business that uses the Internet, accepts credit cards or uses a system network needs cyber insurance.
- Does your business accept credit card payments?
- Does your business bank online?
- Does your business use Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?
- Does your business store sensitive customer or employee data?
To learn more, please contact Lisa Harmon at lisa@piavadc.com or 804-486-4224.
Since 2004, PIA and The Hartford have joined together to provide PIA member agents the opportunity to offer your customers flood insurance through The Hartford, a WYO company. The program is available to PIA members and their policyholders in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. PIA members earn great commissions on flood insurance sales with The Hartford and, if they want, a flood insurance processing center that does most of the heavy lifting for them.
The PIA Market Access Program is a wholesale market access program for PIA members, provided through partnership with InsureZone.
The PIA Market Access platform provides PIA members with the industry’s best sales workflow management tool. Our comparative rating tool, for personal and commercial lines, features a secure single-entry multi-carrier quoting platform. As a result, we return real-time quotes from national and specialty carriers, in order to save you time while making the sale. With PIA Market Access, independent insurance agents are able to provide coverage and carrier options in the time frame clients have come to expect.
Member Discounts
The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) and ACORD, the global standards-setting body for the insurance industry, today announced a joint program to provide qualifying PIA member agencies with a complimentary license to use ACORD Forms.
Automated Workflow Management
Buy a Gold level subscription for only $50 (regularly $100), or sign up for a Bronze subscription for free!
Pre-Licensing for PIA Members Only
95% of Kaplan students recommend Kaplan to their peers. Why? Because they prepare you to pass the first time. Start your studies today with a method tailored to fit your unique learning style.
PIAVADC members received reduced registration rates for the following opportunities:
- Trade Fair and Convention
- CE Expos
- CPIA Courses
- Webinars
- In-House Courses
- Pre-Licensing Classes
PIAVADC offers discounted dues for start-up agencies.
Learn more by contacting Kevin Kowar, Association Executive: kevin@piavadc.com or 804-486-4218.
Much More
Your membership affords you access to two quality publications:
PIA Connection, the award-winning, print newsletter of PIA National. It contains current insurance industry news and analysis that is particularly relevant to independent insurance agents. PIA Connection is published ten times annually, monthly with combined issues in Nov/Dec and July/Aug.
Learn more here.
PIAVADC Monthly Member News to keep you up-to-date with peers, relevant articles, legislative updates, and much more - tailored for the Commonwealth.
See a sample here.
A primary responsibility of PIAVADC is to provide members with a strong, unified voice and to maintain a leadership position with its statewide program of legislative and regulatory advocacy in the General Assembly in Richmond, and in coordinating legislative activities with the DCIF and other organizations at the DC Council in Washington. Not only does PIAVADC staff work closely with PIA National lobbyists to maintain an effective presence in the halls of Congress, but we provide a concerted member representation in state and federal regulatory affairs.
Additionally, PIA covers the insurance industry through articles and commentary to make sure the views of independent agents are accurately represented.
Members may also subscribe to the PIA Advocacy Blog.
Scholarships are awarded twice a year from the PIA Education Foundation and the Elsie Reamy Scholarship Fund to cover registration fees for certain courses for applicants working towards their CIC, CISR, CPIA, and CRM designations.
PIAVADC members gain much from networking occasions with their peers around the Commonwealth as well as the opportunity to serve in leadership roles on Boards and Committees.
Our staff is experienced, knowledgeable and licensed.
Learn more by contacting Sheryl Chasse, Association Executive: sheryl@piavadc.com or 804-486-4218.
