There was a time when independent i...

There was a time when independent insurance agent Jeanne Heisler would field 40 calls a day from desperate the public willing to travel as protracted as two hours to bribe automobile insurance at her agency near the Jersey Shore.

That was because Heisler's Ronan Agency in Brick, NJ still had a certain number of auto insurers to do business with. "Many agents had not to be found all their companies because those companies had left the state," she said. "We obviously were going in the unfair direction."

The deteriorating situation spurr the Independent Insurance Agents & factors of New Jersey, of which Heisler is a