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What could be worse than missing your cruise sailing after suffering a harried day of flight delays? How about discovering you’re expected to pay for the cruise, even though you’re not onboard? Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.

The description of a cruise ship as a “floating hotel” doesn’t fit in one regard. Unless there is an earthquake, hotels typically don’t move. If you’re being delayed, you can call the hotel and ask that your room be held for a late arrival. A ship is supposed to sail at a posted time, whether or not you’re onboard. Unlike a hotel, if you don’t show up, the ship can’t sell your cabin to somebody who arrives later that night.

Most cruise companies have cancellation or no-show penalties that kick in within 45 days of the cruise. The closer you get to the departure date, the higher the penalty. A standard cruise contract calls for no refund if the passenger is not onboard for departure. So you should take measures to help assure you’ll be there on time. You should also consider buying insurance that protects you if you’re not.

If you’re in the insurance business, you may think the premium for the cruise-cancellation insurance is pretty high. Protection of $3,000 or $4,000 may cost you around $100. The term “insurance” may not adequately describe what you’re buying. Think of it more as a fare upgrade, similar to what the airlines offer: The cheapest airline tickets are not refundable; but for an additional charge, you can make changes.

For the extra cost of cruise-protection coverage, you’re actually converting a non-refundable fare to one that is refundable under certain circumstances. Depending on what you buy, the “upgrade” may also offer other coverage, such as medical assistance while you’re out of the country, luggage protection, flight insurance, and more.

While it’s good to have this protection, what you really want is to be on that ship when she sails. Most delay problems occur when flying. Here are some things to consider to improve your chances of a timely arrival.

If the plane doesn’t get you there on time, you’re stuck. The best way to avoid this is to fly in the night before your cruise is to depart. Second best is to schedule an early-morning direct flight on your cruise day. If you can’t find a direct flight, schedule one with as few stops and plane changes as possible. While getting up at 4 a.m. to make an early-morning flight is no fun, you’ll have all day to find later flights that are available should your first flight be canceled or delayed.

If your city is served by a small- or medium-size airport, consider scheduling flights that leave out of a larger hub airport and drive the three or four hours necessary to get there. This reduces the chance of a missed connection due to your originating flight being delayed or canceled.

If you’re forced to fly through a hub airport during the winter, try to select an airline that uses a hub located as far south as possible. Flying through northern cities like Minneapolis or Detroit in the middle of the winter opens you to even more weather-related flight delays.

The cruise lines select the flights and airlines for you if you buy an air-sea package. You will have little say regarding the airlines and flights they use, but you can usually decide the airport from which you’ll leave. Consider asking them to arrange your flight to begin from the larger airport that has several direct flights to your port city, if you don’t mind driving a little farther.

While the cruise companies guarantee nothing, my wife and I have noticed that they work closely with the airlines when the cruise lines make the flight arrangements. We’ve been in the back office of a major cruise line on sailing day and listened as the cruise employees talked to officials at an airline that was experiencing weather delays on many of its flights. We’ve sailed on cruises that departed late so that passengers on delayed flights could get there. One ship we observed waited more than two hours. Depending on the air-sea package and cruise-protection policy you buy, the cruise company may be obligated to fly you to the next port where the ship is to stop. You’ll miss a day or two of the cruise, but it won’t be a total loss.

Flight delays and cancellations make too many headlines these days. You can eliminate this problem–while saving a few dollars–if you can drive to the port city. Back in the mid 1980s, we would book a cruise, then shop for the lowest air fare to the port city–it was simple. These days the cruise lines control most of the cheapest airline tickets to port cities on cruise days. This forces us to make air travel arrangements through the cruise line.

If an air add-on offered by the cruise line costs $300, a family of four will have a total air travel cost of $1,200. That family, or two couples traveling together, could easily drive a couple of days to the cruise dock and save several hundred dollars. Be sure to get directions and parking information from the cruise line before you leave home. You’ll have expenses for several meals and a couple of hotel nights, the mileage on your car, and a few days of parking expense, but it should still be cheaper than air travel for four people. More importantly, you’ll have more control of your schedule.

So how do you make sure your dream cruise doesn’t start without you?

* Buy cruise-protection insurance.

* Schedule to arrive at the port city the day before departure.

* If you can’t arrive a day prior, schedule the earliest, most direct flight available on your cruise-departure day.

* Consider driving to a larger airport that has more direct flights.

* Let the cruise line make your air arrangements for you.

* Consider driving to the port city.

A great thing about a cruise is that other people can do most of your thinking for you. They can show you the exciting ports-of-call, arrange your wonderful mealtime experiences, plan onboard activities, and more. They’re ready to show you a good time, if you can just get them. Do a little planning and you’ll be aboard when the fun begins.

Norman Maclean, author of A River Runs Through It, observed that writers in Montana seldom have to look very far-or very hard-for story ideas. “There are characters and situations here everywhere you look,” he said.

Maclean must have known Christy Leskovar’s family. Leskovar is the author of One Night in a Bad Inn (Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula, Mont., 2006), a tribute to her maternal grandmodier, Aila Hughes Thompson. Thompson was a woman of strong character, a hard worker, and above all, “a lady,” despite the influence of her parents, Andrew and Sarah Hughes, who both “did time” for such crimes as grave robbing and insurance fraud and of her husband, an Irish gambler, drinker, and brawler.

We meet Thompson early on in the book and follow her and her siblings to the state orphanage where they live while their parents are in prison, and later when she works in her mother’s Butte boardinghouse, attends high school, and rebuffs her alcoholic mother’s attempts to force her into prostitution. In one dramatic scene, the young Aila is sent to a boarder’s room to deliver a meal; when he opens the door naked, it’s obvious he’s been promised more than dinner by his landlady. Later in the story, an angry Sarah prevents her daughter from attending college by tearing all of Aila’s clothes to shreds while telling her “You’ll never amount to anything. . . . You could make plenty of money for me right here in this house if you weren’t so high and mighty”.

There’s much colorful Montana history to learn from One Night in a Bad Inn. Unfortunately. The book is so long that my attention flagged, especially in the mid-section where the author revisits World War I for over 150 pages. I think the book’s length resulted from Leskovar’s desire to use everything she learned. I know what that is like from personal experience, so I’m somewhat sympathetic, but there are several places where some judicious editing could have moved the story along.

In a reverse situation, new editions of two terrific travel guides have come out with additional information to enrich and inform visitors about Glacier National Park-and sites along the Nez Perce Trail. Place Names of Glacier National Park by Jack Holterman is now in its third edition, brought out in 2006 by Chris Cauble at Riverbend Publishing in Helena, who is doing so much to keep important Montana material in print. This book contains fascinating facts, legends, and speculations about how familiar names came to be bestowed on mountains, lakes, roads, and way stations in Glacier. When possible, Holterman cross-references mentions of these spots to other works that many of his readers will know-or will want to, such as the entry for “Marias River and Pass,” which not only includes a suggestion of the pass being haunted-certainly a draw for young tourists who usually relish ghost stories-but also directs adults to an early Montana author: “About 1879 Andrew Garcia fled through here or near here and had to bury his beloved Nez Perce wife, fatally wounded by Blackfeet, in the ‘wild Marias Mountains’. This 240-page book is a gem, and its ninety-yearold author is a true Montana treasure. I can hardly wait to revisit Glacier with this informative and reasonably priced paperback guide in hand.

Editor’s note: This month we introduce a new column that will appear periodically. In it, industry experts will offer their insights on how agencies can acquire additional information about prospect and client needs and behaviors in order to serve them better, and in the process, increase sales. Our author for this first column is Jack McMahan, president of Crossing the Chasm, LLC, a relationship management consulting firm, which specializes in innovative growth solutions for insurance agencies.

Your phone rings and you answer to hear this bizarre request: “Hi, this is Pat. You don’t know me. Want to go out for lunch?”

Does that cold call work?

Probably not.

You wouldn’t use this technique to get a date. So why do we use it to obtain prospects? Aren’t the goals the same-to build a relationship?

Over the last decade the terms “relationship,” “relationship management,” and even “customer relationship management” have taken on added interest. None of these terms is new. For me, however, heightened awareness of how selling organizations outside the insurance industry perform has created new interest in getting back to the basics of relationship building.

Harry Beckwith, who suggests that we need to sell like we date1, is one of my favorite marketing mentors. I hope to expand on his “dating” metaphor, with a touch of humor, to address fundamental issues of relationship building and management.

“Want to get married?”

Asking to marry your date the first time you go out isn’t likely to bring a positive response-and if it does, the likelihood of a good marriage resulting is slim. Inexperienced insurance producers often talk first about themselves (what they know or who they know), about products (”We have great___”), and, finally, about price (”We are competitive.”). Initiating any relationship means building trust, which necessitates demonstrating a genuine interest in the other person early on. Relationships take time.

Do not talk about “me,” “product,” or “price” on the first date. Focus, instead, on the prospect. The prospect is not “the business”; he or she is a person. Find out who the person is, what that person needs, and why you should date.

What blank eyes mean.

Blank eyes probably mean that you’re not connecting at an emotional level. If you can’t get, or haven’t gotten, to an emotional level in the relationship, the connection probably isn’t going to work. How do you know when you’ve connected emotionally? Look at the eyes.

First kiss.

Build a foundation for the relationship early on. Gain trust by developing the big picture. Look for and understand the critical issues surrounding the client, such as economic trends, industry trends, and downstream customer demands. Keep in mind the client’s underlying values and behaviors. Look for opportunities, big and small, to be of service, to provide insight, and to offer opinions that demonstrate you understand the person as well as the business. Once you have proved that you understand and you care, then you have earned the right to kiss.

“I can’t get no satisfaction!”

In this anthem of the 1960s, the Rolling Stones sing about the ambiguities of relationship building Chances are good that your prospect is not looking for you to prove your expertise. Expertise is generally assumed, or you wouldn’t be offered the privilege to meet. The prospect is looking for a relationship experience. That experience may mean convenience , confidence , or comfort .

The point is that “relationship experience” is a feeling in the mind of your client. You absolutely must find out what feeling your client or prospect is looking for to make sure that what you are delivering matches that feeling over the long haul. Clients are typically won based on expertise, but the relationship experience is what keeps them coming back.

Let your date know you care.

Reliability is a fundamental component of trust. It goes beyond showing up on time or answering the telephone on the first ring. It means truly understanding the client’s behaviors, characteristics, attitudes, and values and then using your understanding to customize the way you interact with that client. Sometimes you do that intuitively, remembering Joe’s favorite team, for example. My point is, do it better, do it deeper, and do it systematically.

“Will you still love me tomorrow?”

The number one reason why defection occurs is the customer’s belief that he or she has been taken for granted2. That’s the reason that the second most important month to genuinely communicate with your customer, on a personal level, is the month after renewal.

“Just tell me the truth.”

Lying or exaggerating is never appropriate. Building trust, right from the beginning, is the single most important ingredient in a lasting relationship.

Chrome Systems Corporation, provider of automotive data, configuration and comparison technology and commerce solutions, today announced a new Web service that enables application developers to retrieve used vehicle values based on an automated cross referencing of Chrome’s vehicle description to official N.A.D.A. valuations. The result of this cross referencing is a summary of a vehicle’s worth, adjusted for mileage, installed options and region of the country, that can be incorporated into a web-based software application.

Chrome’s N.A.D.A. Valuation Service is an extension of the Chrome Knowledge Platform(TM), a Chrome-hosted Web service platform that grants and enables access to its rich vehicle database and associated software tools. Through this service, developers query hosted information on a per transaction basis. Application developers benefit because they can utilize standard Web services technology to access the Chrome service inside of their own applications. Customers benefit because they can retrieve valuations as needed, by simply entering a VIN or a manufacturer’s model code.

“Our vision of developing leading-edge, market-reflective new and used automotive data integration tools and solutions continues with this latest announcement from our partner Chrome Systems,” said Scott Lilja, chief executive officer of the N.A.D.A. Official Used Car Guide(R) Company. “This is another example of the outstanding strategic relationship between Chrome and N.A.D.A. We believe that this new offering will bring enhanced efficiencies, lower systems maintenance costs, and best in class automotive data solutions to our current and prospective clients.”

By using standard Web Services technology, clients developing applications can quickly become automotive experts, without having to stray from their own development environments. Because the data is hosted and maintained by Chrome, clients no longer need to distribute data updates, manage a hosting environment or invest in massive computing power. Additionally, clients pay on a transaction basis, a benefit for any business that requires this type of information on a case-by-case basis, such as a lender or an insurance company.

“We are extremely pleased to offer our clients and their customers this new Web service, one that conveniently brings together Chrome’s industry-standard vehicle descriptions and N.A.D.A.’s market-reflective values over the Internet,” said Dave Mingle, president of Chrome Systems. “This is exactly the kind of product synergy we expected from our partnership with N.A.D.A. and look forward to even more joint development efforts. Our mutual goal is to make it more efficient and profitable to market, buy, sell and finance vehicles online.”

With more than 13,500 clients, including half of all automotive dealers in the U.S. and Canada, Chrome provides vehicle content, software, technology and services to deliver complete enterprise solutions to all segments of the retail automotive industry. These segments include manufacturers, fleet companies, dealers, Internet sites, and financial institutions. Chrome pioneered the technology behind electronic vehicle configuration with the introduction of PC Carbook(R), and since 1986 has collected, analyzed and enhanced “raw” automotive data from all manufacturers.

Remember those thunderous hoofs of yesteryear bearing the mysterious Lone Ranger? Or perhaps you’ve heard of “the voice crying in the wilderness.” Stephen A. Moses might be categorized both ways–or, if you’re inclined to disagree with him, as a misguided scout pointing in exactly the wrong direction. There’s no disputing one thing: Right or wrong, Steve Moses has for years been the lone voice publicly discussing the macro-issues of long-term care financing. Starting in the early 1980s, when he was an employee of the then Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and wondering why Medicaid, a program to pay for the healthcare of the poor, seemed to be turning into a nursing home entitlement program for everyone, Moses has been addressing complicated LTC policy issues head-on. He says he’s for expanding private financing of LTC, most particularly through private insurance, not because he’s particularly antigovernment or beholden to private interests, but because there is no other way short of a national financial meltdown. In September 2004, his Center for Long-Term Care Financing published The Realist’s Guide to Medicaid and Long-Term Care, an impressive review of ten states’ approaches to LTC financing. The report concludes that depending on several factors–most notably their Medicaid eligibility rules, estate recovery programs, and encouragement of private financing mechanisms–the states are at various stops along the way to financial disaster. Recently Moses discussed the Center’s findings and prescriptions for improvement–and his personal frustrations as a policy advocate–with Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management Editor-in-Chief Richard L. Peck.

Peck: What was your purpose in publishing this ambitious 80-page study?

Moses: The purpose is the same as I’ve always had, since I worked for HCFA in 1983: to understand and explain why we have this mess, a welfare-financed, institution-based LTC system in a wealthy country where no one wants to go to a nursing home.

Peck: In the public forum, your voice has been virtually alone in discussing the basic issues of long-term care financing. How do you feel about that?

Moses: Very frustrated. I can’t seem to wake up the insurance and provider industries to start informing the public about this problem. I’ve asked the academics to do the research, but they won’t. Those who are involved in the public discussion have a stake in the status quo–whether it’s Medicaid policymakers, Medicaid planners, or senior advocates, so they fight change. I guess the ones we really need to persuade are those who stand to gain from the system working the way it’s supposed to–that is, the poor and those who favor the nonpoor taking personal responsibility for themselves. Right now, though, each interest group huddles inside its own silo–for example, the providers want more money from Medicaid, which is broke, and the insurers try to frighten people into protecting their assets, which people don’t believe are at risk for long-term care.

The easy availability of Medicaid LTC benefits enables the public’s denial. Although it’s true that most people still think that Medicare covers long-term care, insurers look at this and think that the key is to educate the public–but education isn’t enough to motivate people when they don’t believe they are at risk and government does, in fact, pay for most LTC services through Medicaid. No one is really acknowledging that there is no future in either Medicare or Medicaid for long-term care, and that planning ahead for those who are able to save, invest, or insure is a matter of great urgency.

Peck: Those who have looked at the private financing alternative, long-term care insurance, think it has too many knocks against it: They’re saying it’s too costly, too out of line with middle-aged people’s financial priorities, and too unstable to rely upon over the long term. Your response?

Moses: As we discussed in the Center’s Myth of Affordability study published a few years ago, the LTC insurance affordability problem is a myth. The real problem is people’s lack of prioritization. Nothing seems affordable that you don’t think you need. Consumer advocates tell the public that long-term care insurance is too expensive to purchase unless you have a lot of assets to protect, and that Medicaid is a practical alternative. Leaving aside the questions of Medicaid’s financially perilous state and lowered expectations of quality care, this stance ignores the fact that middle-class, middle-aged people can afford private insurance. For the professional couple in their 50s or early 60s with no children to support anymore, the insurance will cost them less than dining out once a week. The family with kids, car payments, and college expenses is indeed in a bind, but would it be unreasonable for their kids, when they come of age, to help with the premiums to protect Mom and Dad and perhaps their inheritance? But right now, they don’t have the incentive because they don’t see that their inheritance is at risk. Medicaid has in fact become inheritance insurance for baby boomers, anesthetizing them to the risk and cost of long-term care, both for their parents and themselves.

As for the quality of LTC policies, it’s true that this has been questioned in the past, but policies have improved considerably over the years. Those large rate increases people worry about are coming these days mostly from a small group of insurers that offered artificially low rates that ended up getting them in trouble. Also, given the newness of the product and the absence of actuarial data on morbidity, it’s not surprising that some companies missed the mark and had to raise premiums. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners issued a model state statute a couple of years ago that makes rate increases a very undesirable alternative for insurers. I think today we’re seeing rates that are much more reflective of likely future claims experience.

Peck: What sort of coverage do you have for yourself?

Moses: My wife and I purchased a policy at age 50 priced at $400 a year for each of us, which covers nursing homes’ expenses, after a 90-day deductible, at $200 a day and assisted living at $120 a day, with no coverage for home healthcare. My objective was to cover the catastrophic risk of long-term institutional care at the lowest possible premium while I still had house and car payments and a son in college. We could supplement our coverage in the future, assuming we’re still insurable, and decide then if we need more coverage. But we were overinsured in the meantime. I wouldn’t recommend this approach to someone who doesn’t follow the insurance industry as closely as I do. Probably a better idea would be to buy comprehensive coverage right from the start if one can afford it.

I prefer to self-insure for home healthcare because, unlike nursing home care, the need for home healthcare someday is a virtual certainty. The purpose of insurance is to replace the small risk of a catastrophic loss with the certainty of an affordable premium. With home healthcare, you don’t necessarily need to jump into a risk pool from which everyone will be making withdrawals; rather, you can save and invest for this risk. Some people need the discipline of an insurance plan, however, to help them save for home health so, again, I wouldn’t recommend my approach to everyone.

Peck: What do you think of the drive toward home- and community-based waivers for Medicaid long-term care?

Moses: I think the states are very careless in pursuing this objective without controlling Medicaid eligibility first, because HCBS [home- and community-based services] are going to explode in costs and perpetuate people’s reliance on Medicaid, giving them even less incentive to protect themselves with long-term care insurance or home equity conversion. My goal is to redirect Medicaid away from the affluent and middle class in order to save it for the poor, for whom it was intended. We’ll never see a healthy HCBS system until people are able to pay for it privately.

Peck: Your Realist’s Guide offers a fascinating tour of the LTC planning approaches of several states, defining some that are close to “basket cases” and others that are closer to what might be described as “model” states. What are the patterns that seem to define them one way or another?

Moses: First of all, I wouldn’t use the term “model” states. They’re all basket cases to some degree or another, although it’s not entirely their fault. They’re hampered by various federal restrictions. But some are doing less well than others with the tools already at hand to ease their Medicaid burdens.

For example, California is still allowing a pyramid divestiture schedule–outlawed by OBRA ‘93–that allows the wealthy to give away as much as $1 million in assets in a small fraction of the time allowed by federal law to qualify for Medi-Cal. Georgia, Michigan, and Texas have only just started implementing estate recoveries to reimburse their Medicaid programs for long-term care expenses. I predict that none of these three states will recover enough to pay for the estate recovery program itself because of the exclusions and exemptions they’ve built into their programs. Oregon has been doing estate recoveries since the inception of its Medicaid program, and today collects $15 for every $1 invested in running the program. In fact, it was the Oregon program that first got me interested in this question when I was at HCFA in the early 1980s. I calculated back then how much the country as a whole would save in Medicaid expenditures if it did the same thing as Oregon and published the results for the Office of Inspector General. Since then it’s become even more clear that the potential to help support Medicaid for the poor and wake up baby boomers to their financial risks in relying on Medicaid is huge if and when Medicaid estate recoveries are pursued cost effectively.

This does not necessarily have to be a political problem, by the way, as some have called it. To get across the appropriateness of estate recovery, you show the public how the genuinely poor are hurt as they lose access to Medicaid-funded services, while the affluent just skate by.

Minnesota has a relatively strong estate recovery program and strict eligibility rules, along with a 10 to 14% penetration of long-term care insurance and active home equity conversion. Although its recent HCBS push has been counterproductive in the absence of stronger eligibility controls, it has a Medicaid nursing home census of only 59%. So it’s less a “basket case” than some others.

In general, the states do have options to make Medicaid eligibility more rational, and we need the federal government to give states more authority to do so. The market is heading in that direction. All I’m saying is, let’s expedite this and get the thing fixed before the whole system collapses.

Peck: Aside from getting out of states’ way, what do you see as the federal role in long-term care financing?

Moses: I know one thing that won’t happen–having the federal government assume the entire long-term care portion of Medicaid, as some states have asked. It’s just too expensive for the federal budget. I don’t see the type of partnership arrangement where you have private insurance covering the first few years of LTC expenses with the federal government covering the back end. As I mentioned, insurance is for replacing the small risk of a large loss with the certainty of an affordable premium, not for dollar-cost-averaging a more likely event. Nor would I count on adding a new Medicare part for long-term care because with the financial situation Medicare is headed toward, it would be like adding deck chairs to the Titanic after its encounter with the iceberg.