Archive for the ‘Agencies’ Category

2011 may not have been a great year for the U.S. economy, but it was a very good year for Independent Agents and their carriers, according to a new report by the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers Association.

After years of market contraction, all property‐casualty insurance premium lines grew in 2011. Independent agents and brokers (IAs) were well poised to capture their share of the market. Many regional and national IA carriers expanded their shares by double digits. Furthermore, overall IA share grew in several states and regional IAs outpaced market growth in many business lines nationwide.

Agent involvement is important throughout the entire customer experience – and agents add real value to the process.

By their actions, many of our competitors are proving that they do not feel agents add value at renewal. Some of those competitors are now slashing renewal commissions by as much as 33%. Others are slashing both new and renewal commissions significantly.

Because we work hard to keep everything as simple as possible – and value agent involvement – iMGA pays the same commission rate for both new and renewal business. We really like renewals.

It is also why we made it so that the agency fee would be collected on all renewals and not just on new business when we implemented agency fee options in our Rental product.

We appreciate our agents and work to show that appreciation in many ways every day. We know we’re better off because you work with us. We want your agency to be better off because we’ve worked with you.

We understand how critical it is that our agents be properly compensated for the effort it takes to service a policy. We also understand how important it is that everything in the policy issuance and management process be as easy as possible.

Effective immediately, iMGA agents may add an Agency Fee to a Renters policy.

If an Agency Fee is added, it will be:

1. included in the calculation of the minimum down payment,
2. disclosed clearly on the policy declarations page,
3. remitted to the agent on the first commission statement after payment is received, and
4. automatically included on each renewal of the policy.

Here’s how it will look on the declarations page:

You have a wide range of choices as to the Agency Fee you’d like to charge (including the ability to NOT charge a fee), and that choice can change by policy.

We hope you enjoy the added flexibility this provides. If the response to this is positive we will evaluate expanding it to other products as well. Please let us know what you think.

A couple months ago we needed to switch our print and mailing. The firm that had been doing it could not any longer. This turned out to be a huge positive for several reasons. As part of the process we:

1. Updated the system creating the print packages.
2. Analyzed each policy package.
3. Reviewed the output from each transaction type.
4. Examined ways to combine output.

These efforts returned significant savings and a better experience for our agents and clients. As a result of the project iMGA was able to produce mailers with:

1. Much more modern, clean, user-friendly documents.
2. Much less wasted paper and ink.
3. Less confusing layout for the clients.
4. Fewer envelopes and separate packages.

We know there’s always room for more improvement and we will continue to listen to suggestions about ways to get better. In fact, several of the changes we made were the direct result of input from agents that we listened to and those changes made a meaningful impact.

We’re very happy with the results so far. With a few weeks of focused efforts we were able to make substantial improvements in a significant portion of our business.

Specifically, we:

1. Improved mailing reliability.
2. Dramatically reduced staff effort and time needed to handle printing and mailing, and
3. Decreased costs.

All in all, a great experience.

What portion of your business have you focused on lately? What portion of your business would you like to improve? Why not start with that now?

Of course you can grow your agency by finding new customers or by adding new markets.

But the easiest and fastest way to grow your agency is to increase the number of products you provide for your existing customers. The sale is easier because you already have a relationship, plus studies have shown that customers with multiple policies stay with you longer. This multiplies your growth over time.

Fortunately as an iMGA agent you have a wide range of products to meet multiple needs for your clients:

• Homeowners – HOA, HOA+ and HOB options to cover a wide range of home values, ages and conditions.
• MobileHome – Specialty coverage for clients whether inside a mobile home park or not.
• Dwelling – TDP1, TDP1+ and TDP3 policies for owner and tenant-occupied dwellings.
• Vacant Dwelling – A specific option for hard-to-place vacant homes.
• Renters – Contents and Liability coverages for insureds who don’t yet own a home.
• Umbrella – Up to $5 million in primary and/or $5 million excess coverage for clients with the need to protect a wide range of assets.

All iMGA products focus on being EASY to use, with instant online binding, payment and document and flexible direct bill options. So as an iMGA agent you can focus on making sure you’re offering all your clients all the protection they need and growing your agency quickly in the process.

If you’re an agent who is not already working with us and would like a to grow your agency by offering a Texas Personal Property program that includes cutting-edge Renters, Dwelling, Vacant, MobileHome, HOA/HOA+/HOB and Umbrella products, just tell us a little about yourself.