Weighing Your Options: Online Versus Classroom CE 

New tools are popping up every day that take the ways we communicate, work, and learn and translate them to the online world. The benefits of this movement are transforming every aspect of an agent’s practice — including, but not limited to, the way you pursue your continuing education (CE) credits. Many organizations now provide rich online content that allows you to study for and complete your CE requirements entirely online, while other groups may enable you to complete a large proportion of your CE work via the Web, with the rest taking place in a conventional classroom.

The movement toward online CE fulfillment is growing in tandem with the nation’s focus, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, on extending broadband connectivity to rural areas, linking schools and hospitals with sophisticated resources anywhere in the world and heightening productivity by bringing to our fingertips the tools we need for many of our daily tasks.

The value of the Internet in an educational setting has quickly become apparent to insurance professionals, who are finding many benefits in pursuing CE credits through self-study and online testing. The advantages of online education for agents and brokers include:

• Individuals can better fit their studies into their schedules because all the online resources are available all day, every day.
  
• With an Internet connection via a wireless network or computer card, online classrooms can be accessed from anywhere — a living room, the middle of a lake, a train car, etc.
  
• Online classes rarely fill up; in fact, they often scale up to accommodate more students.
  
• Just as shopping online has eliminated the costs of traveling from store to store, taking online classes means saving time and money (in the form of fuel costs of driving many miles to a physical classroom).
  
• Online course fees are almost universally less expensive than classroom tuition. Some providers’ CE studies can be completed online, ranging in price from $1 to $20 per credit hour.
  
• The breadth of courses offered via the Web is expanding quickly. Even recently required courses such as those on LTCI and flood insurance are being offered by online providers.

Of course, any method has its drawbacks. Proctoring remains a challenge, and the NAIC Producer Licensing Handbook originally called for limiting online CE credits to 12 of the 24 required every two years. NAIC recommends that states do not place a limit on self-study, as long as it can be verified in some way. In fact, 22 states do not require a proctor at all.

While the industry’s trend toward online study has been growing, classroom settings do offer several benefits that might make them preferable to online options for some agents:

• A number of associations — such as the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, Professional Insurance Agents, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and the National Association for Health Underwriters — offer free seminars that qualify for course credit. These sessions may be provided in conjunction with a quarterly regional meeting or annual convention that the producer plans to attend anyway. From cost and convenience standpoints, it makes sense to take advantage of these opportunities to obtain free CE credits.
  
• Personal networking can be valuable to many agents, who always watch for market availability to find contracts for which they may be able to compete. The breaks during classroom sessions can allow producers to meet with peers, gather intelligence on agency contracts, and, perhaps, gain additional business.
  
• Some education courses are complex and fairly difficult to learn by simply reading a book or studying online. Agents taking courses in commercial package insurance, commercial general liability, and estate planning, for instance, can benefit greatly from an instructor who can share their own real-life experiences, as well as from classmates who can discuss their experiences with claims and denials.
  
• A few providers will send instructors directly into a large agency to conduct an education program. For example, the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research offers instructors for programs designed to qualify agents as certified insurance counselors (CIC), certified risk managers (CRM) or certified insurance service representatives (CISR). These instructors will help educate a group of 20 to 40 producers within the agency, making it a convenient method for obtaining CE credits.

Producers seeking to gain the most from their CE experience can take six action steps right now:

1. Plan the courses you will need over the next 12 months by category (ethics, general study, technical, etc.). Then, see which of these courses is available online.
   
2. Compare the costs of pursuing these classes through the Web versus the classroom and take advantage of the lowest costs. (See chart for a comparison between online and classroom CE courses.)
   
3. Review the providers and their course outlines for online CE. You can find them at the Web sites of many state insurance departments. A number of third-party vendors will display a comprehensive state-by-state list of approved courses, credits, and providers. Be sure to visit these sites so that you don’t end up taking a course for which you won’t receive credit.
   
4. Check for free courses offered by industry associations.
   
5. Don’t wait until the last month or two to try to squeeze in your 24 hours of CE. You have two years to plan and take your courses. If you go online, go early, since some online CE courses do fill up.
   
6. Look into new technology that creates a personal compliance portal through which you can track the CE courses and credits you’ve accumulated, and which are banked with the various states.

In many states, once you have completed your online classes, you can access your transcript online to verify the courses you have successfully completed, the credit hours you’ve earned, and which ones still remain.

Make sure to verify that your provider has correctly reported your course completions by reviewing your transcript on the appropriate state’s Web site.

Frequently, you can complete your CE certification more rapidly, less expensively, and more conveniently by jumping on the “broadband wagon.” Just make sure you’re weighing the best options for you, and make sure you stay compliant and on top of things.

Gary Gummig is vice president of government affairs and business development for Sircon Corporation. He can be reached at 877-884-5328, or at ggummig@sircon.com.