{"id":210,"date":"2022-06-15T22:19:38","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T22:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulyshao.com\/?page_id=210"},"modified":"2022-08-20T04:43:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T04:43:23","slug":"acronyms","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.paulyshao.com\/?page_id=210","title":{"rendered":"Acronyms"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Acronyms Used by Allstate Agents<\/h3>\n

NAPAA:<\/span><\/b> National Association of Professional Allstate Agents, Inc., the official organization of Allstate agents. The organization has a \u201cAll Agents Page\u201d discussion group on Facebook. Its president has a Web-searchable quarterly message to his\/her members. It contracted in September 2020 the famous constitution attorney Mr. James Bopp to do an injunction on Allstate for forcing its agents to use Allstate telephone system (\u201cAAV\u201d).<\/p>

EA:<\/span><\/b>: Exclusive Captive Agent. Captive in the sense that agent can only sell Allstate insurance products or Allstate-approved outside products. EAs are classified as independent contractors, who, supposedly, enjoy freedoms which employee-agents lack such as the freedom of running the office (e.g., an administrative staff of Allstate must make an appoint before he\/she can visit agent\u2019s office), and having not a production quota over his\/her head. Allstate, like Nationwide and State Farm, did not demand P & C production quotas until 4\/2019, while the latter two had never violated this long-held norm of the EA tradition of setting up P & C quotas. In exchange for not selling other companies\u2019 products, the captor-company is expected to refrain from selling its insurance products directly to the public either through a companied owned super mega agency such as a direct sales department or through outside independent agencies. Nationwide fudged (with, perhaps, a somewhat uneasiness of conscious) this norm gently without engaging in the direct competitions with his agents in sales until 7\/2020, when Nationwide completed its two-year transition to operate as a fully independent agency carrier with, thus, a clear corporate conscious, whereas Allstate has done it in a predatory manner by completing with agents on leads and, according to some agents, solicitating agent\u2019s sub-agents. Credit must go to State Farm, who has kept its tacit understanding with its captive agents without engaging in direct sales or the distribution of its products to outside independent agents.<\/span><\/p>

P & C:<\/span><\/b> Property and Casualty Insurance. Mainly, home, auto and commercial.<\/span><\/p>

IA:<\/span><\/b> Independent Agents, who, in contrast to exclusive captive agents, can sell different company\u2019s products, if contracted. IA owns the insurance policies he\/she has written. IA does not have a mother company who monitors the agent\u2019s day-to-day operation such as office hours, performs, etc. However, an insurance carrier would sever relation with an agent if he\/she fails to produce a minimum number of policies (annually) or has a high loss ratio. The carrier would notify the agent its decision to cancel their contract and allow the agent to bring the insurance policies to another carrier to underwrite them, usually in the timeframe of two years. There is no non-compete clause in IA\u2019s contractual agreement with an insurance carrier.<\/span><\/p>

IC:<\/span><\/b> Independent Contractor, the definition of which is stated by IRS as follows: \u201cThe general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct <\/span>only<\/strong> (Bold is mine) the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done. [\u2026] You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed.\u201d Therefore, an administrative staff of Allstate cannot go to a captive agent\u2019s office unannounced. A corollary to the above restriction is a staff of the company cannot eavesdrop or spy on the business conversation of a captive agent.<\/span><\/p>\n

In companies like State Farm and Nationwide, the status of independent contractor means that an agent is free from production quotas, because he\/she has been graduated from the status of an employee-agent, who was imposed a rigorous quota requirement in one to three years\u2019 timeframe. The company makes a promise to the employee-agent that, if you could meet the quota in this initial period, you are free from quota for the rest of your life. It becomes a norm of the insurance industry, and it meets IRS\u2019s definition of IC. Allstate honors this industry norm until 4\/2019, when it has started imposing the production quotas.<\/p>

CCC:<\/span><\/b> Customer Contact Center (To be completed.)<\/span><\/p>

AAV:<\/span><\/b> Allstate Agency Voice, which is a centralized telephone system, created by Allstate to monitor both the performances of exclusive agents and employee-agents. It was always mandatory to employee-agents to use the system and has become mandatory to exclusive agents (who are independent contractors) since 11\/2020, before which they owned their own systems like EAs of all other insurance companies \u2013 for State Farm agents, the company may own the office and telephone equipment (the hardware) but not the functioning of the system (the software). A distinction must be made between the telephone equipment (the hardware) and the telephone system (the software). It is not the equipment, which is problematic, but the system, which can be used to monitor and eavesdrop on agent\u2019s conversations, both business and personal. If the status of EA as an IC safeguards him\/her from unannounced visits from the administrator staffs of the company, why then the company could openly allow it staff to intrude into an agent\u2019s business and personal conversation without restriction? Does that intrusion alone violate IRS\u2019s concept of IC, who is not supposed to be controlled by his employer on how to use his essential means of production, i.e., his telephone system.<\/span><\/p>

TPP:<\/span><\/b> Termination payment, which is made by Allstate in 24 payments or, in some cases, 12 payments after Allstate appropriates agent\u2019s economical interest in the book, which has not been successfully sold to an agent-buyer in 3 months after voluntary or involuntary termination (with cause or without). If, say, a book is of a million dollars of premium and if the agent\u2019s economical interest is 10% ($100,000) of the premium, then the value of the book can be in the range of $100,000 x 2-3 multiplier depending on the \u201chealth (lost ratio, retention of policies, supporting staffs, etc.)\u201d of the book. Let us take the low multiplier, which is 2. Then the book value for sale is $200,000. For TPP, Allstate uses a multiplier of 1.5; thus, the value of book is $150,000 to Allstate. However, Allstate would exclude old policies written before the year 2000 from book, because they paid some money (exactly how much is unclear) to obtain policies from agents in year 2000 by transforming them from employees to independent agents — according to those then employee-agents, they were cheated out by Allstate in not fulfilling its promise of pensions and other benefits and at least 460 of them filed class action suits against Allstate. Allstate is an old company founded in 1931; to be exact, he is 90 years old \u2013 Allstate would seize all policies written between age 0 to age 69 without paying a dime. Most agents have old policies before year 2000; let us say, 30%. Allstate would only pay 70% of the book value of $150,000, which is, $105,000. If the buyer paid 20% down and obtained a loan of $160,000 with an interest rate of 6%; after 4 years he was terminated by Allstate, he would have a debt balance of $107,182.77. (If one purchases with the high-end multiplier of 3, then the book value is $300,000; and an 80% loan balance after 4 years is $160,774.15.) Furthermore, even though the FSL, Field Sales Leader (first level administrator of agents), who served as a sales-agent in selling an agent\u2019s book and who would receive $5,000 to $10,000 commission from Allstate in handling the sale, tended to give the buyer of a book the impression that Allstate would buy back the book at the 1.5 multiplier at termination. A deceptive impression. In fact, an Appropriation! because Allstate does not pay interest on the 24 installments for the value of book of $105,000; the interest total is $6,687.94<\/span>[1]<\/a>. The terminated agent must eat the value of, say, the 30% of old policies and the 6% interest payments of the appropriated book.<\/span><\/p>

FSL:<\/span><\/b> Field Sales Leader, the first level Allstate official, who administrates agents, and who also serves as the middleman in buying and selling agent\u2019s economical interest in his\/her book for a commission of $5,000 to $10,000, paid by Allstate.<\/span><\/p>

ABO:<\/span><\/b> Agency Business Objectives, which is a production quota for termination, if not met. There is no production quota in the Manual prior to 2013, when and when only a vague reference of ABO was put inside the Manual. The requirements were rather vague term in 2013 and not acted upon in the sense that no notice was sent to agents of this requirement and there was no report of agent being terminated because of quota. But the quota system was executed with specific details and rigid timeline since 4-2019. It meant to terminate agents. Hundreds of agents became casualty of this act of Allstate.<\/span><\/p>

R3001 (S or C):<\/span><\/b> Exclusive Agency Agreement (12 pages) and accompanying integrated documents, which are as follows: Exclusive Agency Independent Contractor Manual (\u201cManual,\u201d 47 pages, revised 38 times at the time of 4\/1\/2021), the Supplement for the R3001 Agreement (\u201cSupplement,\u201d 264 pages, revised 79 times at the time of 6\/1\/2021), and Exclusive Agency Independent Contractor Reference Guide (\u201cGuide,\u201d 99 pages, revised 13 times at the time of 7\/11\/2016).<\/span>[2]<\/a> The total contract consists of 422 pages and Allstate has the sole power to alter the terms of the contract \u2013 in this case, 130 times. It is, in short, a one-sided\/imparity employment contract. The three accompanying integrated documents are usually described as the rules and regulations of the company. The 12-page agreement is the main contract between Allstate and the agent. The EA Agreement under question is an adhesion-like contract and Its Paragraph I.C allows Allstate to amend freely without accommodating the principle of meeting of the minds of the contract law. This “fluid” one-sided nature of the contract should be executed under the scrutiny of the Federal and State law which imbues in all contracts the obligation of good faith and fair dealing. There are several characteristics of the present contract to be delineated as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It is an IC contract. IRS\u2019s principle of can-not-be-controlled by an employer should be applicable here. See discussions under the terms IC and AAV.<\/li>\n
  2. It is an exclusive captive agent contract, which should observe the norm and tradition of this type of agencies in the insurance industry. In exchange for being exclusive and captive, does the employer has the moral obligation \u2013 the obligation of good faith and fair dealing — to refrain from opening a super mega agency to sell its products and distributing to non-captive independent agencies to sell its products? See discussions under the term EA.<\/li>\n
  3. Are Allstate\u2019s criteria for termination in line with the other companies who also have exclusive captive agents?<\/li>\n
  4. Are Allstate\u2019s procedures (in terms of due process) in line with the other companies who also have exclusive captive agents?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    [1]<\/a> The interest calculation Website was referred to me by Ex-agent Collin Brennan.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> The info was provided to me by Ex-agent Collin Brennan.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Acronyms Used by Allstate Agents NAPAA: National Association of Professional Allstate Agents, Inc., the official organization of Allstate agents. The organization has a \u201cAll Agents Page\u201d discussion group on Facebook. Its president has a Web-searchable quarterly message to his\/her members. It contracted in September 2020 the famous constitution attorney Mr. James Bopp to do an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"wf_page_folders":[],"class_list":["post-210","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nAcronyms - Why Go Pro Se Litigant at Age 74<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/paulyshao.com\/?page_id=210\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Acronyms - Why Go Pro Se Litigant at Age 74\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Acronyms Used by Allstate Agents NAPAA: National Association of Professional Allstate Agents, Inc., the official organization of Allstate agents. 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