The Poison Chicken

During my early training I spent a Friday doing new business and renewal appointments with one of the senior people from the office. We had ...

26 Miles Across the Sea

In February of 1999 the company got a request to bid on a group of camps, including one on Catalina Island, 26 miles off the coast of Los An...

The Crazy Guy

This story isn't about an insurance situation, but a guy I encountered one day while on the road in my territory. I had an appointment ...

The Entrepreneur in the Middle of Nowhere

Almost every year I would get a card or a call from a pastor whose church was located about as far away from my office as you could get and ...

The Environmentalist Preacher

I was having lunch with the pastor of a church and we were talking about his plans for a new church complex on some raw land they owned. We ...

The Arrogant Preacher

I've spent 35 years dealing with pastors as a member of a traveling music ministry, and nine years in the church insurance business. Mo...

Loss Run Surprise

Loss runs are documents prepared by insurance companies to show the claims experience of a particular client. They're often required as ...

Stupid Agent Tricks

Well, they're not really stupid. I just wanted to borrow the title from Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks. Training (sort of) I did not ...

The Lady Preacher

I didn't run into too many lady preachers in my nine years of church insurance work. If I did they were usually pastoring some new age ...

Liars and Cheats

One of the frustrating things about working in the church insurance business was dealing with liars and cheats. You wouldn't expect that...

The Cults and the Weirdos

Part of being in the church insurance business was dealing with every kind of church, including many which were pretty much cults. There are...

Mr. Big Bible the Dumpster Diver

Now, before I go any further, let me just say that I’m not trying to imply here that the church insurance business is more unsavory than any...

From School Cafeteria to the Theater

Here's a rare success story involving a start-up church. Back in about 1999 I got a call from a lady who was the treasurer for a brand n...

More Ego Than Evangelism

I'm not sure there's a school in Orange County that doesn't have a church in it on Sunday. When I was writing church insurance I...

The Mexican Baptist Church

Another story from my early days as a church insurance agent. Part of my territory was Imperial County, CA. The county was kind of an aftert...

The White Mercedes

When I was first starting out as a church insurance agent and doing renewals on my own, one of the first churches I went to was an African-A...

Leave Alone Slap

This is the first of the people management posts I promised in the blog's Purpose Statement . When I was in banking in the 80's all ...