Streamlining Continuing Education for Insurance Producers: An MGA’s Guide

To uphold the insurance industry’s growing standards, investing in Continuing Education (CE) is a must. As an MGA, you play an essential role in supporting your team in meeting their CE requirements.

Nevertheless, some challenges will arise during the process. These may include managing CE credits for insurance producers, finding the right courses, managing schedules and deadlines, ensuring compliance, and tracking completed credits.

We understand the importance of staying updated and in compliance with your business. This is why we’ve put together this MGA’s guide on how to streamline the whole Continuing Education process for your insurance producers!

Continuing Education Credits for License Renewal

The renewal of insurance producer licenses mandates the acquisition of Continuing Education (CE) credits. Although the requirements differ from state to state, the majority stipulate that these educational credits must be secured prior to the license renewal deadline.

Insurance producers are required to complete a designated number of Continuing Education credit hours to earn these CE credits, ensuring their licenses stay valid and authorizing them to operate within MGAs.

To determine the specific requirements for renewal issuance, we advise consulting the requirements for each state through the NIPR. 

States with Perpetual Licenses

Keep in mind that some states have perpetual licenses—those which won’t expire. However, they still require the completion of CE to keep the license active and in compliance. Thus, be aware of these special cases so that your producers won’t be dismissed for completing the required courses.

Approaches That Hinder Continuing Education

Have you ever considered if your current methods make CE management overly complicated? Maybe you’ve experienced a few of the scenarios below. These are the approaches that you must identify and eliminate from your management process.

Manual Documentation Management

The filing of many documents in physical archives is a widely used method in the insurance sector. The problem with this method is that it increases the risk of misplacement and results in time loss when it comes to searching for documentation. With a large volume of producers, it becomes challenging for MGAs to manage without the assistance of a solution.

Use of Spreadsheets

Many MGAs track their producers’ CE credits for insurance producers using spreadsheets that require manual input—a very outdated method. This significantly increases the risk of errors, making it difficult to ensure data accuracy.

That’s even worse if you need to balance multiple schedules and deadlines for completing CE credit hours from various states. The use of outdated methods can complicate a process that is already challenging due to the various steps and requirements involved.

Producers Wait Until the Last Minute to Complete Their CE Courses

Waiting until the last minute to complete CE courses is a common pitfall for insurance producers. This procrastination not only adds stress for the individuals involved but can also jeopardize their license renewal process.

Difficulty in Finding Suitable Courses for Each Producer

Another challenge is finding the ideal course for each producer. MGAs must navigate through the complex landscape of state-specific CE requirements.

However, the MGA should also conduct a thorough skill gap analysis for each producer to uncover the skills or knowledge lacking. With this, they can pinpoint additional courses to enhance their performance.

How to Simplify Continuing Education for Insurance Producers

There are pivotal strategies that stand out for their effectiveness and efficiency in CE course management. In this section, we will outline the most relevant strategies that MGAs cannot afford to overlook.

These strategies not only simplify the management of CE credits for insurance producers but also enhance compliance, improve scheduling, and more.

Set Timely Reminders

You and your producers undoubtedly manage a heavy workload and numerous daily tasks. This leads to the potential oversight of completing a course, missing CE hours, or even missing license renewal deadlines.

Mitigate this issue by setting reminders for your producers to finish their courses. Additionally, implement a reminder for yourself to verify your course completion. You can use calendars or advanced license tracking software for that.

Research Ahead and Choose the Ideal CE

Choose one that corresponds to the type of license, state requirements, and interests that apply to you and your team. Remember, the additional courses should also be aligned with the career path the producers are taking.

By thinking ahead, you’ll not only enable your producers to meet their requirements for license renewal but also improve their skills and knowledge in their specific line of insurance.

Also choose a format that’s better for them, such as online courses. This will enable them to complete the lessons whenever is more suitable for them, without needing to allocate additional time and energy to do so in-person.

Prepare All Documentation Ahead of Time

Organize the documents to make the renewal process as smooth as possible. This helps you avoid delays or errors during the process, such as requesting a CE course certificate.

To streamline this process, consider utilizing specialized software that enables file attachments directly to your producers’ dashboards. This approach effectively mitigates the risk of overlooking a document during license renewal or when requesting a CE course certificate.

Use Tools for Tracking CE Credits for Insurance Producers

With the chosen course, simply start the classes and you’re all set! Well, not quite. There are still a few processes that need to take place before you obtain CE credits. Choosing a tool that tracks Continuing Education can facilitate this process.

The system will assist you in tracking course progress so you don’t have to do it manually. It’s one of the best ways to simplify and automate the process of Continuing Education for insurance producers.

Don't Overlook the Relevance of Using a Tracking Solution

Your producers are always evolving with CE courses, so why shouldn’t you also update your processes? The dynamic insurance market requires adaptation and updates for you to stay competitive.

How will you handle your producers’ licenses, appointments, and Continuing Education credits as your team expands and sells in additional states? Adopting a tracking solution simplifies this process, making your business scalable!

CE Hours Management and Tracking

With an easy-to-use platform, you can track each producer’s credits, as well as completed and remaining hours. Both producers and MGAs can track completion progress through a dashboard. This eliminates the need for manual records and provides a clear view of compliance statuses.

Easier License Renewal

With the right solution, your producers can renew their solutions without leaving the platform. They won’t need to navigate the complex website of the NIPR; everything is done on one screen.

In addition, your solution might allow attaching documents directly to the producer’s dashboard. Ensure that all necessary documentation is readily available whenever your producer is going to renew it.

Unify All Information in One Place

Tired of navigating through the NIPR to check data for each producer? Or perhaps you’re bogged down in emails, spreadsheets, reports, or messages? A tracking solution streamlines all this information into one central location, saving you valuable time.

This solution extracts data from the NIPR database and organizes it into user-friendly dashboards. With real-time updates, you can bid farewell to manual NIPR lookups.

Automated Reminders

Use the solution to set up automatic notifications for upcoming license renewals. 

Say goodbye to conventional calendars. Reminders are now on the same platform where users track their license statuses and CE hours. 

If You're Talking About Simplifying Processes, You're Talking About Agenzee!

Now, you must learn how to choose the ideal platform for you. With specialized software for producer license management, we have what you need to stay compliant!

Agenzee encompasses all the previously mentioned features, offering a streamlined solution for managing the CE process with ease and providing peace of mind.

Our software simplifies the task of monitoring each producer’s Continuing Education hours. Moreover, it boasts additional features designed to further ease your workload, enhancing your overall experience, including:

• An intuitive and easy-to-use interface
• Real-time status tracking of your producers’ licenses and appointments
• Automatic reminders for renewal deadlines
• Mobile app access for you and your producers
• Integration with the NIPR system with daily updates
• API integration with your main system

…and more!

With the right tools and strategies in place, like those offered by Agenzee, you can streamline the whole Continuing Education for insurance producers process. 

We are ready to help you transition into this new, simplified approach, empowering you with the technology to keep your team on track and ahead in the competitive insurance industry.

Unlock your full management potential by choosing the smart solution for your license management and Continuing Education needs. 

Contact us to request your free demo now!