Book Description

Under the new Basle Guidelines, all financial institutions subject to local banking laws will soon be required to operate under dramatically different risk exposure rules. Risk Management and Capital Adequacy provides details on the key risk approaches under these new guidelines and is the first book to analyze if and how they can be integrated. From conceptual frameworks to analyses of models and approaches, it provides a solid reference source for the information that everyone in risk management will soon need to know.

Reviews (1)

A handbook for all Risk Professionals
This book offers comprehensive coverage of market, credit and operational risks in all aspects. It covers the technical modeling and its interplay with the external regulations by which an integrated risk approach is governed. It includes a critical review of the current regulatory environment and analyses the different proposals for the next Bank of International Settlements (BIS) accord, now scheduled for 2005.

Attention is given to different measurement approaches of market, credit and operational risks as well as the key assumptions and conditions for an integrated approach as required in the coming Basel Accord. More specifically, it provides a framework for the design, operation, viewing the policies, methodologies, data collection and infrastructure use to support risk management.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. It covers with great competence all the aspects of risk management. The emphasis placed on risk control and the building blocks for a successful integration of all three risk types is highlighted in the light of recent events.

I recommend this book to all academics and professionals and also encourage its use in graduate course in risk management bank management. ... Read more

Book Description

This book offers a lifetime of real-world experience in the field of insurance sales. It will serve as an invaluable source for anyone who wants to succeed in this field. Forty of the most successful agents pass their experience on to you. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Encouraging biographies
I have only been a life insurance agent for one and a half years now. Certainly, it has its ups and downs. I found this book during one of my down cycles. The stories (each chapter is a different autobiography of a top agent) while not giving specific pointers on how tos and marketing ideas are nonetheless encouraging in that you see the possibilities through people who have been there and survived. I enjoyed the book but would have loved for it to have more real pointers. Most of the advice is generic: hang in there, provide good service, give yourself time for your agency to develop, etc. Still great reading and a nice addition to an insurance agent's library. Books on insurance sales are few and far between. Two really great books are Frank Bettger's "How I raised myself from a failure to a success" and Kent Larsen's "A touch of Larseny." These both have great ideas. All are good. Success to all my fellow agents. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Financial Management of Healthcare Organizations
This text proved an invaluable guide to the subject of hospital finances. This was a subject I was not particularly interested in, and the book surprised me. It is readable and clear. The logic flows smoothly. There are plenty of examples, illustrating assorted principles. After reading several books on the topic of hospital finances, this one stands out for its clarity. ... Read more

Book Description

Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk is the first book that systematically analyzes how catastrophe models can be used for assessing and managing risks of extreme events. It focuses on natural disaster risk, but also discusses the management of terrorism risk. A unique feature of this book is the involvement of three leading catastrophe modeling firms, AIR Worldwide, EQECAT, and Risk Management Solutions, who examine the role of catastrophe modeling in rate setting, portfolio management and risk financing.

Using data from three model cities (Oakland, CA, Long Beach, CA and Miami/Dade County, FLA), experts from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania examine the role of catastrophe modeling to develop risk management strategies for reducing and spreading the losses from future disasters. Given the uncertainties associated with terrorism the book points out the opportunities for utilizing catastrophe models to set insurance rates and to examine public-private partnerships for providing financial assistance in the event of a terrorist attack.

Reviews (1)

Excellent!
This book covers so many great topics that it is impossible to go into all of them in an amazon review.Suffice to say, for anyone in the reinsurance business, or anyone interested in risk management in general, this is simply a terrific book.The subject matter is dense, but the writing is lucid and engaging.Nicely done! ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Not for average consumer
I do not recommend this book as a main source of information for the average reader. It is informational, but probably incomplete and not useful in deciding which plan to implement. It is used as a supplement (not even the main textbook) in an advanced Certified Financial Planning (CFP) course. Students in this course already have proven knowledge of key concepts regarding taxes, investments, risk management-insurance, etc. This is tough education/training that is being undertaken by people who's main job is (will be) to advise on these subjects.

Informative But Organized Poorly.
The other review for this book refers to it as dry. Frankly, I have yet to read a riveting book on the retirement plan regulations. Liemberg touches on all the relevent topics that can arise when planning a retirement program for a company or an individual. What makes the book so tedious is that so much of the first 250 pages covering the various retirement saving vehicles rehash the same ERISA/IRS regulations every chapter. Chapters 25 through 27 which sumarize these regulations should be at the beginning of the book and then each chapter covering a retirement plan would only need a table referring to them. Liemberg instead tortures the readers with them in virtually every chapter from Ch.s 8 - 24. The meat of the book is then followed by about 25 short chapters covering all sorts of additional corporate benefits such as life and health insurance and reimbursement plans. Leimberg should be applauded for including so many topics but should have gotten his act together with the organization after 8 editions. For those of you that need to read this for the CFP or related professional tests, I suggest reading chapters 25-27 before reading Ch.s 8-24.

Poorly Written Textbook
This is a poorly written textbook. It is dry, uninformative and lacks any cohesive organization that would make the material easier to understand. The author uses a set template for each topic (Advantages, Disadvantages, Tax Implications etc.) that sometimes fits and sometimes does not fit the topic at hand. In more than one case, there are bullet items that repeat the same text as previously bulleted items. This is just sloppy editing and a lack of attentiveness ... ... Read more

Book Description

The Professional Review Guide for the RHIA and RHIT Examinations 2004 Edition is accompanied by an interactive CD-ROM that contains over 1600 review questions to prepare the user for AHIMA's RHIA and RHIT Certification Examinations.The 1600 review questions found both in the book and CD-ROM were selected by authors to cover the broad range of topic categories found in both the RHIA and RHIT examinations. ... Read more

Book Description

The Professional Review Guide for the CCS Examination 2004 Edition contains:study tips, a comprehensive resource list, a review section with multiple choice coding questions that review a broad range of competencies.This valuable manual also includes coding case studies for coding review for the CCS examination, a mock examination that strives to mirror the CCS Examination. The mock examination includes 60 multiple choice coding questions reviewing a broad range of competencies, 21 medical record coding cases, 11 outpatient records, 5 Ambulatory surgery, 3 emergency room, 3 other,and 10 inpatient records.The appendices include:Official Guidelines for ICD-9-CM Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, Commonly Administered Drugs, Lab values, and a new listing of updated ICD-9-CM coding changes for 2004Use the book and the Interactive CD-ROM to practice interpreting documentation and applying your clinical knowledge in assigning codes to diagnoses and procedure for a variety of patient settings including: Inpatient, Outpatient surgery, Emergency Room, Physician office, and Long term Care. ... Read more

Book Description

Over recent years the insurance industry has faced a period of rapid change and consolidation, with recent natural and man-made disasters highlighting the problems that the industry faces. Yet this has also been a time of opportunity with the traditional role of insurance giving way to its classification as a asset class. This has resulted in insurance risks now being priced and exchanged on the markets.

In this book, the authors analyze the convergence between the insurance industry and the capital markets. They sumarize the main trends and issues and analyze past events within the industry. Thus, they demonstrate that the current market pressures on insurance companies do not not just create challenges but also new opportunities.

... Read more

Reviews (4)

Insightful!
In Insurance from Underwriting to Derivaties, Eric Briys and Francois de Varenne, both Deutsche Bank insurance experts, have written a highly technical, albeit readable, book for their professional peers. They discuss property-casualty insurance, risk, securitizing, pricing and liabilities duration in the United States and Europe. However, it will dawn on the casual reader fairly early that there should be an "experts only" label on the book jacket. Even the basic introduction to property-casualty insurance begins with the presentation of complex mathematical models. More daunting models, charts and graphs elucidate information throughout. Insiders will appreciate this data and the extensive footnotes and references. While this may not be a book for the mid-management reader, we assure you, without risk, that its target audience - financial executives and professionals in the insurance industry - will be very glad to have it.

Good intro on insurance ALM
This is probably the best book on insurance for explaining the poor state of some ALM techniques used in insurance today and why. The authors correctly identify many falacies that actuaries have relied on and how they differ from the more advanced finance that has developed in banking ALM and the capital markets generally.

They do, however, get a bit distracted on a couple of topics, and bogged down in some formulas that I didn't think added much to the disccusion. In those moments, you know you're reading the work of university professors rather than practitioners.

They could have gone further with their ALM thinking. They could have discussed how mergers between insurance and banking would in the future highlight the differences between the current approaches to ALM, and how financial conglomerates will eventually just relegate insurance to one of many liability businesses, apply option-adjusted transfer prices to insurance products, and take the interest rate risk into consolidated positions. It will not be any more complicated than that. They allude to banking ALM, but don't really drive home any of what I thought were the logical conclusions. They were focused on insurance as stand-alone companies and did not address insurance in the context of a financial conglomerate.

Nonetheless, as stated, this is probably the best book on the market as an introduction to insurance ALM and helps dispell many myths and provides some useful history.

Highly Recommended!
In Insurance from Underwriting to Derivaties, Eric Briys and Francois de Varenne, both Deutsche Bank insurance experts, have written a highly technical, albeit readable, book for their professional peers. They discuss property-casualty insurance, risk, securitizing, pricing and liabilities duration in the United States and Europe. However, it will dawn on the casual reader fairly early that there should be an "experts only" label on the book jacket. Even the basic introduction to property-casualty insurance begins with the presentation of complex mathematical models. More daunting models, charts and graphs elucidate information throughout. Insiders will appreciate this data and the extensive footnotes and references. While this may not be a book for the mid-management reader, we from getAbstract assure you, without risk, that its target audience - financial executives and professionals in the insurance industry - will be very glad to have it.

Insurance ALM and Derivatives
As a non insurance specialist, I was curious what the authors have to write about the convergence between the insurance industry and the capital markets. In particular the aspect of derivatives, since I'm in Equity Derivatives. The authors cover nicely the rapid change the insurance industry has faced the last couple of years. Show risk, opportunity, and support many arguments with mathematical models. Even though the authors have an outstanding academic record, the book is aktually fun reading (no boring academic book). References to other articles are extensive and the ALM Survival Toolkit in the Appendix is very well done. Here are the chapters:

1 The Basics of Property-Casualty Insurance
2 Securitizing Insurance Risks
3 Life Insurance in the United States: History of a crisis
4 ALM in Insurance: An Empirical Wander Around Europe
5 Life Insurance Pricing and the Measurement of the Duration and Liabilities
6 A Functional Approach to the Insurance Industry
7 Conclusion and Future Challenges
Appendix: The ALM Survival Toolkit

Mr Briys & Mr de Varenne have confirmend that the French are world-class in derivatives. Bravo! ... Read more

Book Description

A Guide to Health Insurance Billing takes the normally "dry" topic of insurance billing and makes it user-friendly and engaging. All aspects of the billing process, from key terms to state and federal regulations to guidelines for completing and submitting claims to health insurance programs, are written in clear direct language that is easily understood. Numerous real world examples, review exercises and simulations throughout the text clarify difficult concepts and give users the opportunity of applying learned material. · An introduction to the new coding systems, ICD-10. · ICD-9-CM and CPT coding systems are explained using the most current information · Health insurance simulation and coding exercises put users in a realistic insurance billing environment · Managed care and its impact on health insurance billing is covered in a special chapter · Accompanying CD-ROM provides additional application exercises for HCFA-1500 completion and coding · Chapter on the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) introduces readers to this commonly used method of claim submission (KEYWORDS:insurance, billing, coding, entry-level, ICD-9, CPT, HCPCS, exercises, user-friendly, educational programs, insurance claims, key concepts, health insurance) ... Read more

Book Description

The State Guide to CAM Specialties is an invaluable reference for all medical professionals and insurance providers involved with the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) industry. This annual guide's state-by-state breakdowns of specific practice guidelines clearly outline what services CAM practitioners can and can not legally deliver to their patients, and assists insurance providers in determining which services to offer (or stop offering) and which practitioners to recruit to best supply those services. Easy to understand and well-organized, The State Guide to CAM Specialties is a definitive reference to the legal compliance issues relevant to CAM practitioners and the insurers who monitor and pay for CAM services.(KEYWORDS:Insurance, Coding, CAM Specialties, alternative medicine, insurance providers) ... Read more

Book Description

Apart from standard actuarial theory, Modern Actuarial Risk Theory contains methods that are relevant for actuarial practice, for instance the rating of automobile insurance policies, premium principles and IBNR models, as well as generalized linear models with an eye on actuarial applications. Furthermore extensive introductions are given to credibility theory and ordering of risks. The book reflects the state of the art in actuarial risk theory. In addition to some chapters which are compatible with official material of actuarial education in North-America, Europe and other parts of the world, the book contains important material on topics that are relevant for recent insurance and actuarial developments including determining solvency measures, fair-value computations, reserving, ranking of risks, modelling dependencies and the use of generalized linear models. Basic ideas on risk measures in the framework of insurance premiums are also considered. The numerou! s exercises contained in Modern Actuarial Risk Theory, together with the hints for solving the more difficult ones and the numerical answers to many others, make the book useful as a textbook. Some important practical paradigms in insurance are presented in a way that is appealing to actuaries in their daily business. The mathematical background assumed is on a level such as acquired in the first stage of a bachelors program in quantitative economics or mathematical statistics. ... Read more

Book Description

If you own a car or are in the market for one, Auto Upkeep is the book for you! From choosing an insurance policy to performing basic maintenance and repair, Auto Upkeep presents the information you need in an easy-to-follow format with detailed pictures and drawings. An accompanying CD provides review questions and hands-on activities to help you apply concepts from the text. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Perfect for anyone curious about cars.
I bought this book with my 16-year-old daughter in mind. Since she used half of her own hard earned money to make her first car purchase she is interested in knowing how to maintain it properly. She started asking me questions and I didn't know all the answers, so I decided to buy Auto Upkeep: Basic Car Care. I didn't want a book so mechanically complex that she wouldn't read it, so I'm glad I found this book! The pictures and illustrations are excellent. The author of Auto Upkeep simplifies complex automotive systems in a way that keeps her attention and mine. My 14-year-old son has also begun reading it!

My only regret is that I didn't buy this book before my daughter bought her car. I know it would have saved us some money. I never took "auto shop" in school, so I learned things the hard way. It's great to know that I am helping my kids learn the basics easily and early in life.

I highly recommend this book!!

Knowledge is power, I am glad I bought this book!
I decided it was time to teach myself the basics of car maintenance. As a single mom I have to save money any way I can. I bought Auto Upkeep to become familiar with the basics and now I feel a lot better. It was really easy to read and I have enough information to feel more confident about asking a mechanic to explain to me what needs to be fixed on my car. I'm not planning on doing my own oil changes, but now I am checking my oil and I know how to add some if it is low. Knowledge is power - thanks for a great basic car care book!

It is worth it if you want to learn about Basic Car Care!
I believe this book holds up to its name. Auto Upkeep: Basic Car Care is a book that helped me better understand cars, their parts, and the importance of servicing. I also found the tech tips and web links useful. This book contains a lot of practical information. For example last month I needed a new set of tires for my 2000 Toyota Camry. Auto Upkeep clearly explained the tire buying process and gave me the information I needed to feel confident when I went to Sears to purchase a set. Recently I had a specific car question so I tried out their online "Q & A" guide at rollinghillspublishing.com and I got a quick personalized response. I would recommend Auto Upkeep to any car owner out there.

Not worth it
This book does not provide me with many answers. It's written as a textbook for school (since when were you able to take car care classes in school??), and thus it makes no recommendations and doesn't dare to give you a straight answer. I hardly know anything about cars and could use a book to give me an overview, instructions and recommendations. However, this book does not include all aspects that I would expect (e.g. there's nothing in the book about rims - what rims will work on my car?, nothing about trailers, nothing about roof storage boxes etc.). There are no graphics of how to do actual car care - rather theres bulletpoint textlists on the included (bad) CD and text studying questions "to assist instructors" - not what I need as a carowner. Further, the troubleshooting guide is painfully bad. There must be better titles out there for use by the individual carowner. This book is not worth the money.

A highly recommended primer and self-teaching tool
Auto Upkeep: Basic Car Care by automotive expert Michael E. Gray is a practical and straightforward guide for anyone who owns a car or is considering buying one. The no-nonsense basics for beginners concern everything from insurance payments, to fluid level checks, to simple facts about the fuel, cooling, ignition, steering, braking systems, and much, much more make. Auto Upkeep an excellent and very highly recommended primer and self-teaching tool which is enhanced with accompanying CD-ROM contains activities, website links, and study questions. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (9)

practical and funny
This how-to is blessed with two cardinal virtues: it's very, very practical, and very, very funny. For Rhonda Orin, fighting a health insurer over a coverage denial or a short payment seems to be like fox-hunting for an English nobleman: a joy to be studied with relish and pursued at every opportunity. Recalcitrance or feigned incompetence on the part of an insurer only stimulates her to fight harder -- and this book spells out, with a connoisseur's surehandedness, every step in the process of "making them pay." The book is also an excellent guide to choosing an insurance plan, if you're lucky enough to have a choice, and to reading the policy with an eye to hidden costs and hidden exclusions.

As for the humor, Ms. Orin writes about insurers as if they're incorrigible children -- children she knows very, very well.

Don't be fooled by the title
I bought this book thinking it would help with my insurance company pay my claims they denied (no names, but their initials are Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Georgia). It wasn't helpful in that way. This book seems to focus on people who actually have a choice on picking what insurance they want. It doesn't help the 99.9% of employees who don't have any choice on what insurance plan they're offered.
The book clearly explains all the ins and outs of insurance companies, but is little help in "making them pay."

Librarian's Recommendation
Rhonda Orin's book on health insurance is very informative as it offers clear, concise advice on how to deal with health insurers. From a reference librarian's perspective possibly the most useful part is the mandatory benefits list of all 50 states. There is also humor in the cartoons and text, always a good way to break the ice when dealing with such an ornery topic. Highly recommended.

Fabulous book!
As an attorney myself who had the rare privilege of working under the expert guidance of Ms. Orin, it is no surprise to me that this book is funny, informative, easy to read, and a terrific reference manual for how to decipher those long, horrendous insurance policies and all the fine print that unfortunately comes with them. This book is and will be a very useful guide for anyone who reads it. I strongly recommend it.

Grateful reader
Great book! Very helpful. It helped me understand how to get the most out of my insurance coverage. The clever anecdotes made normally dry material come alive. After reading it I evaluated my family's coverage and made changes to fit our "profile". And I finally resolved a dispute in my favor! ... Read more

Book Description

LEARN how to INITIATE, ORGANIZE, and SUSTAIN your study preparation!Preparation Guide for the RHIA and RHIT Examinations is designed to be used as a mechanism to assist, enhance and structure the users study and exam preparation activities for the RHIA and RHIT certificate examinations.A CD-ROM with study tools for designing a personal study agenda is included with the book. ... Read more

Book Description

"For anyone who needs to understand different types of life insurance, as well as considerations for purchasing and managing policies, this book should be on your nearby reference shelf. If you’ve frequently found yourself fumbling around with terminology, such as the differences between variable, universal, and variable universal life (VUL) policies, you’ll finally see some light through the haze." - MorningstarAdvisor.com

Life insurance doesn't have to be complex or intimidating. Ben Baldwin's completely revised and updated guidebook makes it clear and logical, discussing how to analyze insurance products based on their investment merits and best overall financial returns. This clear, authoritative resource for consumer insurance information covers the pros and cons of Internet purchases, techniques to use capital within a policy, the fixed premium feature, insurance for different stages of life, and the new emergence of "immediate annuities."

Reviews (14)

For anybody that calls themselves financial advisor
This book is for any life agent, financial advisor, CFP, CPA, or anybody who specializes in the financial services industry. This book is for agents who still sales whole life or universal life ,variable universal life can do anything that fixed insurance product can do and more. This book is also for those who sale the VUL, it will help you understand what it is and how it works, It is a hell of a lot more than just Life insurance. This book is also for buy term and invest the difference people, after reading this book you will understand that term investing the difference is a foolish mistake and a amiture one as well. If you are giving financial advise and not looking to see if the VUL can fit into their portfolio in some cases you might be leaving your client an incompleate financial plan. I would ask for all those specializing in these areas to please read this book. As of today there isn't a financial product that can do what the VUL can if structured properly. Please email me if anybody finds a better and more productive product.

It's like an insurance salesman in your living room.
I think it is a very detailed, organized, and thought out sales pitch for variable universal life insurance (VUL). I came to the conclusion that the product could be useful some a few people with long term need for life insurance, a higher tax bracket, probable estate tax liabilities, and success at finding a policy with low fees. There are a lot of fees associated with the VUL policies which this book primarily pushes. Good investment performance would also be needed. I came to the conclusion that VUL would only make since for me if estate taxes would be an issue 30 to 40 years from now. Otherwise the buy term and invest the rest strategy would probably win out. He made a strong pitch for buying through an insurance professional (his profession), but it is my opinion that this would result in excess fees which would off-set much of the tax advantages. In my case I would already need to pay a for the preparation of the life insurance trust to give me the estate benefit I wanted. He also proposed that VUL was a much better choice than a non-deductible IRA (book was written pre-Roth IRA) because of all the trouble or cost for the paperwork required by non-deductible IRAs. Seemed to me there was as much paperwork involved with VUL, although much of it may be prepared by the insurance company. They should do something for those fees. It was a well written book and read well. Easier to put down though than it is to get an insurance salesman out of you living room.

Not what I was expecting, too biased
If you're looking for an objective presentation of life insurance choices, this is NOT the book. This is biased towards Variable Univeral Life. I'm returning this book.

Decent
Although Mr. Baldwin did a nice job explaining the various insurance products, he came across as too much of a salesman.

I also found a portion of what he said to be misleading. He talks about how if a person is happy paying their premiums (and expenses) with after-tax dollars, then term insurance is good for them. He then states that by using a VUL product, a person can pay their fees with before-tax dollars. This is misleading in that the premium you pay to the insurance company IS AFTER TAX!

The best thing to keep in mind while reading this book is that Ben Baldwin is an insurance salesman!

powerful info!!!
This is a wonderfull consumer friendly book! It puts in english all the information on the various types of insurance.
It dispells many of the mis-conceptions regarding variable universal life. Refering to it as the swiss army knife of financial products sums it up!!!
Mr. Baldwin is an extremely respected person in the planning community-- this books is well worth reading for anyone!!! ... Read more

Book Description

Both in insurance and in finance applications, questions involving extremal events (such as large insurance claims, large fluctuations in financial data, stock market shocks, risk management, ...) play an increasingly important role. This book sets out to bridge the gap between the existing theory and practical applications both from a probabilistic as well as from a statistical point of view. Whatever new theory is presented is always motivated by relevant real-life examples. The numerous illustrations and examples, and the extensive bibliography make this book an ideal reference text for students, teachers and users in the industry of extremal event methodology. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

largest book written on extremes
This book presents extreme value theory and its applications with the finance industry as its primary target. There have been many excellent texts written on extreme value theory but none this extensive. As the authors admit even as extensive as it is the theory of multivariate extremes is neglected. They chose to only cover in detail the theory that is mature enough for application.

What you will find here that is not in many texts on this subject is a treatment of risk theory and fluctuations of sums and various time series models including cases with heavy-tailed marginal distributions.

Chapter 8 on special topics is particularly interesting with a lot of coverage for the extremal index, large claim index, ARCH processes, large deviations, reinsurance, stable processes and self-similarity. The book contains over 600 references to the literature and is a welcome resource for practitioners in finance and insurance as well as extreme value theorists.

Highly recommended
This book covers the theory and applications of extremal value theory (an area of applied probability). The mathematics is kept at an acceptable level, i.e. advanced undergraduates in math/physics/engineering, but the breadth and the sophistication of the statements are such that the results are never trivial. Chapters 2-3-4 introduce the reader to the property of sums, maxima and order statistics of random variables. Many results are only stated but not proved. Yet, this does not detract to the readability of the book. Chpater 5 treats point processes and requires a deeper mathematical background. Among the chapters, this was the most disappointing to me. The monographs of Resnick and of Kallenberg, as well as many good introductions to point processes in queueing theory, are in my opinion both a more intuitive and rigorous introduction to random measures. This is not a major flaw of the book, given its view toward applications; and besides this, the bibliographical notes will point the reader to the relevant literature. Chapter 6, on statistical analysis of extremal events, is enjoyable and extremely useful for practitioners in finance and insurance. Chapter 7 touches upon time series and its relation to heavy tails. Finally, chapter 8 is a put-pourri of topics: ARCH processes, stable processes, self-similarity. Overall, I found this book useful as a reference, but sometimes lacking in focus: some topics seem juxtaposed with no clear logical continuity. Another potential shortcoming of the book is that it is neither completely rigorous nor completely readable (i.e., an undergraduate-level book). At the same time, these can be considered as qualities: with regards to the former, there is plenty of material to consult and draw inspiration from; and at the same time each reader will find the "right" level of mathematics in the book. In my opinion the final balance is largely positive, and I would recommend this book without hesitation. ... Read more

Book Description

Workers' compensation causes headaches throughout all levels of an organization. Injuries affect production, costs, and morale. Managing Workers' Compensation: A Guide to Injury Reduction and Effective Claim Management lays out - in logical order - management and safety procedures that reduce injuries and the aggravation that follows. The authors cover hiring, training, and managing employees with injury avoidance in mind. They provide a blueprint for dealing with injured employees and their families, and for determining the correct time for the employee to return to work.The book discusses the all-important issues of fraud, modified duty, substance abuse testing and accident investigations. It also provides guidance for managing your organization's safety efforts in a manner that targets workers' compensation cost control as one of its major objectives. In addition to comprehensive coverage of workers' compensation, the book gives you a thorough explanation of additional sources of assistance, including the availability and utility of Internet safety resources, a complete listing of state workers' compensation agencies, and sample checklists that help you evaluate your workplace. Although workers' compensation laws vary from state-to-state, the principles behind the system and the ability of employers to influence their own premiums remain consistent. By gaining a thorough understanding of these principles and implementing proven cost control strategies, you can realize substantial savings. Managing Workers' Compensation: A Guide to Injury Reduction and Effective Claim Management explains the process by which premiums are calculated and shows how you can impact - favorably - the amount your organization pays in premiums. ... Read more

Book Description

In the past few years, the financial industry has undergone dynamic structural changes that have deeply affected the sales process. Bruised by market volatility, today’s consumer is skeptical and demands more for less. You need fresh approaches to sell in today’s tough marketplace.

Here are the 22 Keys that can help any financial professional make more money, work less, and maximize their potential. Industry leaders James Benson and Paul Karasik combine their personal experience with the shared wisdom of the masters. Each key contains proven, actionable sales guidelines, including:

* The four primary fears that could destroy your sale—and how to help your prospects overcome them* The nine most effective strategic approaches to "target marketing" success* Five guidelines for qualifying prospects more effectively* Sixty-five ways to snap a sales slump* Ten ways to get your clients to say "Yes"* Four simple steps to generate new business with current clients* Five guidelines for overcoming objections* Six sample scripts to make your closing ratios soar

Whether you’ve been in business for years or are just beginning, each key will unlock a new door on your path to sales success. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Narrow Your Focus and Do More of What Works
Review Summary: 22 Keys to Sales Success has some very fine material in it. The book would have been much improved if it had focused on one type of sales professional in one type of organization looking for one type of client (a new life insurance salesperson in a small agency dealing with owners of small businesses, for example). That would have allowed the material to have been more focused and customized for immediate use. At the same time, some of the material just doesn't fit certain classes of sales professionals. If you are wise enough to ignore what doesn't fit, this book can greatly improve your success.

Review: The authors are clearly well read and have had a lot of experience going to seminars. The many references to the works of others are appropriate and add depth to this otherwise simple book. From that authority, they provide many helpful suggestions that will be essential to newcomers to financial sales and valuable to experienced people who aren't using the advice.

I thought that the advice to Create Your Compelling Vision, Position with Mission, Energize Your Success, Open the Johari Window, Market Yourself as the Expert, Focus on Clients (Not Compensation), Demand Objections, and Be Your Own Sales Manager were superb. I was skeptical about the strong emphasis on continuing efforts to close, scripts and the suggested ways to get referrals. The material in the book seemed inauthentic to me in these areas as a professional, and I graded the book down accordingly.

It seemed like the book was aimed more at those selling insurance products for life and retirement than anything else. So if that's what you sell, this book is probably good for you. If you are a financial planner who looks at all dimensions of planning, this book is probably too sales-oriented to meet your professional standards. If you are an attorney, you will probably find much of what the book says to be appalling in its commercial focus.

One of the ironies of this book is that the authors suggest that you focus in as narrow a niche of services and customers as possible. I wonder why they didn't follow their own advice in writing this book. ... Read more