Vocational Visits Paul

Without daily access to a computer I've got some catching up to do! While back in Vitoria on May 5th, I visited another agency broker, LIG AVitoria http://www.ligavitoria.com.br/ My host was Eduardo Bossanell Araujo, a former exchange student to White Salmon Washington 4 years ago, who now works in Insurance. His company is similar in organization to a cluster group, where mutiple independent agents cluster together to have better economies of scale and access to markets, sharing overhead, but still owning their client base within the group. This gives each member the chance to run their own business they way they want. Some operated with a single employee, some have many.

I also visit the office of Jose Marcio, the Director President of a branch of Banestes Bank http://www.banestes.com.br/ The are having a tough sales year for stocks, because interest rates here are paying 9.75% and are expected to go to 11% before the end of the year. In addition to talking with him about his work, I tell him about The Great Rotary Duck Race Sponsored by Firt Tech Credit Union. He is excited about how it works and wants to start a race here. Maybe I'll come back and help him do just that!

I also visit Sincor http://www.sincor-es.com.br/ . It is like our Professional Insurance Agents Association but it is not a lobbying group per se, like our PIA. I meet with Jose Romulo da Silva, the President. He shows me their resource library for agents, companies and consumers, a code of ethics for members as well as an intership program they run to educate kids in the insurance business. It is very impressive what they have done.