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| The National Association of American Family Agents | Todays Date: Jul 31, 2010 | |||
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 What NAAFA Members Need to Know — Updated 3/13/2010  
Want to “vent” about your job or company? www.jobvent.com is the place to do it. Read what others are saying, also. 7/23/2010 5 Ways to Ensure Mediocrity in your Organization! This article was written by Liz Ryan, an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive, brings out “5 of the most insulting leadership practices, the ones that virtually guarantee a business will end up with the most self-esteem challenged, optionless team members when the dust settles.” Agents aren’t employees at AmFam, but some feel they are often treated as such. Read this article and see if you detect anything familiar! 6/1/10 Bests Rating gives American Family an A with a negative outlook rating across the board as of April 2010. Click here to view the ratings for each of their companies! 5/16/2010 Did you know copiers have hard drives? Information that you copy could fall into the hands of the wrong people, particularly the company you lease your copier from. Agents BEWARE! 5/16/2010 2009 American Family Executive Salaries Available NOW! 4/10/2010 Does American Family’s B- Rating Concern You? 3/27/2010 What Every Agent and Customer Should Know About Clue Reports! 1/23/2010 Jersey Shore' Scares Off Another Sponsor | TMZ.com! AmFam shows discretion by finally removing their sponsorship of "questionable" TV program. Perhaps agents should be asked to approve AmFam's selections before the company is allowed to advertise because sponsorships such as this are an embarrassment to the agency force! 1/2/10 IRS Private Letter Rulings! American Family agents, and other captive agents, are considered independent contractors by the IRS. Since the IRS issued Private Letter Rulings for most of the captive companies, captive agents who filed SS-8’s found their appeal rejected immediately because of these Private Letter Rulings. Very few agents have actually read the 111-page Correspondence between AmFam and the IRS, nor have they read the summary American Family Private Letter Ruling so we are posting both of them for you. You will be interested to read about how little ‘control’ the company is supposed to have over the operation of your agency. Information in an Allstate Private Letter Ruling states that an independent contractor agent has an “economic interest” in the customer list, and agents will realize this ‘interest’ when they are either paid by a 3rd party for their business OR the agent receives termination benefits based on a formula designed to equal a fair market value of their accounts. [Paragraph 6 under Independent Contractor Phase, (Allstate Ruling)] This presumes a fiscal value which should allow an agent to claim capital gain when paid termination benefits. Even more interesting is the fact that AmFam issued a document that says “Formerly called Extended Earnings, the name was changed to “Termination Benefits.” These are payments made to the former agents not to compete.” (See SECA Kit) The non-compete clause applies for one year.The AmFam contract does not state that a customer list cannot be used after the one year because logic would dictate that you’d have to have in your possession a customer list in order to begin competing after the one year. Protect your Privacy on Facebook and Twitter! Participating in Facebook and Twitter continue be a threat to people who innocently post their thoughts and opinions, not realizing how “public” everything they write is there for the entire world to see. Perhaps you will “think again” after reading Tony Bradley’s attached article. 10/3/2009 How the Mighty Fall! Author Jim Collins has recently come out with a book that might interest our readers entitled “How the Mighty Fall and why some companies Never Give In.” We suggest our readers to listen to the video clip of Jim Collins giving his “5 steps to the destruction of corporations” and perhaps formulate your own ideas on the application of his research and wisdom. Then drop us a note on your conclusions at NAAFAwest@comcast.net. 9/10/2009 Do You Really Want to Join AmFam’s FACEBOOK Page? 7/11/2009 PRICE IS CRITICAL and this article definitely confirms it! This article from JD Powers states that according to their survey, only about 10 % of the people say they did not buy from the company giving them the cheapest quote. However, one would also have to assume that 90% of the people DID buy from the company with the lowest quote. Agents have long been telling the company this fact, but it appears company officials are not agreeing with them. NAAFA is aware of several agents being given sales quotas and the threat of termination if these quotas are not met. This appears to be the ultimate in unethical and disloyal behavior toward agents. Most people know that the larger the number of policies an agent has, the greater the number of apps that agent writes per month. However, we all know that most of this business is not “raw” new business. 6/30/2009 The 20 Common Law Factors of a Perfect Independent Contractor Relationship Deliberately Misclassified? What Allstate Has In Common With FedEx! This article appeared recently in the Allstate Agent Association’s Winter 2008/2009 issue of the FOCUS. The article deals with the ongoing question of whether captive agents are independent contractors or employees. We suggest you read this article carefully. You might find you are able to substitute American Family’s name each time you see Allstate’s name. Quoted from the article, “If it Quacks Like A Duck, It’s Probably a Duck.” 3/14/2008 Captive
Agents, the Forgotten People!"
NAAFA is again honoring agents’ requests to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution regarding this article, but we think this is perhaps one of the best letters we have received which summarizes the position and fate of all captive agents in America. You won’t want to miss this! 2/28/2008 12/17/2008; And the
company wonders why they are losing so many customers and retention is
bad? Their own JD Powers study tells it like it is!
Click
here to read the full article.
 Capital
Gains Newsletter— NAAFA Members! CLICK
HERE to read the NEW Capital Gains Newsletter! 10/25/2009Read the latest newsletter from the Gapital Gain Legal Fund where new arguments and important information are presented pertaining to the filing of termination benefits as a capital gain. A MUST READ! RESULTS
OF NAAFA SURVEY REGARDING AGENTS’ LOSS OF INCOME!
AN ARTICLE FOR ALL DISTRICT MANAGERS... Click here!
Copy of a Mandatory OSAT Meeting notice... Click here! NAAFA comments on Mandatory OSAT Meetings and Responsibilities... Click here!  
Brad Teets
Rich Pyorre
It might be assumed that if Pyorre is successful in getting this case dismissed that the trade secret issue would be declared a win by default for agents. Dan Samp
Other Am Fam Cases
 
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