When we started the PIA Public Relations Task Force, we tried to identify ways we could promote PIA and the independent agency system to perhaps give PIA a unique brand in the marketplace. Early this year we were given a unique opportunity to do just that when some of the large direct writers announced they were dropping wind/hail coverage on certain lines of business in South Louisiana and getting out of the flood insurance business nationwide and trying to force their policyholders into the National Flood Insurance Program. Your Board of Directors and the PR Task Force have produced a television commercial to go after this business and access a part of the market that had been previously unavailable to independent agents. We feel strongly that we can collectively accomplish something we may not be able to do individually. We are now ready to move forward with this project, but we need you, our members, to share our vision.

PR Task Force Chairman Darryl Frank reached out to agency members in the New Orleans and North Shore Chapters to get 10 agencies to commit $250 per month for 6 months to be able to purchase the television spots to run this commercial in the Greater New Orleans area on Fox 8 news, Cox channel 15 (replay of the news) and the Weather Channel. For this price, we can get approximately 50- 30 second spots on each of the cable channels and about 15 on the network channel per month. The commercial will drive them to a special Find a PIA Agent website that will both highlight participating agencies as well as provide consumers with search functions for participating agents by geographical areas. From this initial outreach, we've currently received 13 agencies interested, so as we get more agencies to sign up, we can negotiate more spots.

If this pilot program is successful, we hope to take the program state wide, featuring different topics. We'll keep you updated on how this pilot program is going. To view the commercial, click here.