Posts Tagged ‘insurance agency’

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.

Deloitte Consulting has released a new study of auto and home insurance policyholders and the results are significant for independent agents.

The online study of 1,080 each auto and home policyholders, titled “The Voice of the Personal Lines Consumer/Buyers in the driver’s seat”, reaches several relevant conclusions:

“there is a sizable group of consumers who still prefer the human touch in personal lines, choosing to establish a trusted relationship with an insurance professional who can help them shop for a policy (sometimes for more than one type of coverage) as well as show them how to navigate the claims process and be their advocate in case of a loss”

“fewer companies are dedicated to distributing through any one channel. Many are looking to reach prospects and more regularly communicate with policy- holders over multiple platforms, both to take business away from competitors as well as improve retention of their own customers”

“there are demographic factors at work that make some prospects more viable than others in terms of taking them away from the competition”

“while some respondents are committed to buying with an intermediary and others without, there is a significant percentage of “independents” that are more open to switching from agents to a direct purchase (or vice versa) given the right circumstances and enticements”

“overcoming suspicions about the integrity of insurers and agents can play a major role in drawing prospects away from rival carriers and channels”

“Price remains the biggest single element respondents consider when purchasing personal lines insurance. However… price is far from the sole decision point when a prospect is determining whether to become (or remain) a policyholder”

If you think your agency is “destined” to lose clients to direct sales, never to retrieve them again – that is definitely not true, especially if you offer homeowners insurance products. 39% of homeowners currently buying direct said their top preference the next time they buy a new policy is to work with an agent. The same was true with 30% of direct auto policy holders.

Homeowners Clients are Better

55% of homeowners who responded to the survey had been with their insurance agent for at least 6 years. Only 49% of auto insurance customers said the same.

Home policy owners are:

• Less likely to think buying direct would save them money (59% for homeowners vs. 67% for auto customers)
• Less likely to strongly agree that buying direct would be more convenient (29% vs. 33%)
• Less likely to consider price extremely influential in their decision (45% vs. 54%)
• Less likely to switch agencies (only 20% had been with their agency two years or less and many of those were younger consumers who had been purchasing homeowners coverage for a shorter period of time)

With all those great characteristics, it’s clear agencies need to attract homeowners policyholders as much as possible.

What’s the most important step in doing that, according to the survey?

Get Homeowners Policyholders as Young as Possible

Nearly half (45%) of homeowners said they had never switched carriers. So being there first made a huge difference to their agent and/or carrier.

iMGA products let you bring in homeowners clients that are buying their first home or mobilehome. Even before that you can offer your clients a renter’s policy through iMGA. Later if they purchase a rental dwelling or vacant dwelling, we can help you protect that for them also. Together we can help you build a book of quality homeowners clients that will make your agency more successful in the long run.

Higher retention, less price sensitivity, more appreciation for the value agents bring. Who wouldn’t want that? iMGA – and a focus on providing quality homeowners protection to your clients – can make that a reality in your agency.

Every business needs a “hook” . A great hook is something worth talking about. Better yet, it’s something worth driving out of your way to get.

Snuffer’s restaurant in Dallas has a hook. It’s their cheese fries. In my case it’s their cheese fries topped with bacon, chives and jalapenos.

For $8 or less they’ve come up with a dish that is truly noteworthy. It’s special. It’s unique. It made Snuffers our choice for lunch over the thirty other choices we had within 5 miles that day. It’s remarkable in the sense that it’s worth remarking about.

What’s your agency’s hook? What’s the one really unique thing you give/offer/do for your customers? What makes doing business with you special?

At iMGA our hook is that we go crazy making things easy for agents. To do a homeowners, vacant, rental or mobile home quote with us takes well under 2 minutes. We look up the protection class for you. When possible we look up the square footage, construction type and year of construction for you. We don’t ask a single question or require a single piece of paper we don’t have to. We keep our focus on easy in the application and underwriting processes also.

Our goal is to be so easy that it’s noteworthy. We’re obsessive about it because we know it’s our hook. We’re not the biggest or oldest market you have – those spots are taken. But we know we can be the easiest – and we’re determined to be – and as a result agents are telling their friends about us.

How about you? What’s the thing that makes your clients tell their friends about your agency? Please tell us about it in the comments so we can help you spread the word.

As insurance professionals we should be acutely aware that emergencies can and do happen very frequently. Recent storms and power outages have reminded all of us in Texas about how true that is.

It is critical that every agency have a contingency plan to deal with such emergencies. Fortunately, developing a basic plan is not that difficult.

List Your Critical Systems

If you’re like most agencies you need access to:

• phones,
• your agency management system,
• your accounting system,
• email,
• the internet (to access carrier and bank web sites),
• a scanner or fax machine for documentation from clients or to carriers,
• etc.

You may also depend on any number of other systems. Just list them all out.

This doesn’t have to be fancy. It’s much more important to think through everything in advance and be prepared than it is for this to be a fancy, formal process. The end result can even be a simple table that might look something like this:

Review the List

It will probably become very obvious quickly where your weak spots are. If your agency were flooded, or if power were out in your neighborhood, or if a storm prevented anyone from getting to your office, what would you not be able to access? It’s quite likely that just like in the simple example above, the areas that you must fix are very clear.

Plug the Holes

Use backup software. Switch to a laptop the next time you need a new computer in the office. Change systems to one that is hosted for you so that it can be accessed remotely. Change phone companies or upgrade to a Voice-Over-IP system that you can use as if you are in your office from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

The options are many.

In many cases if you make the changes systematically you’ll actually save money at the same time that you improve your ability to recover from a disaster.

Is it really that easy?

Like anything else worthwhile it takes a little work. But with some advanced planning it can sure make you glad you did it.

How do we know?

We’ve had critical equipment stolen, weather shut down access to the office, and transformers explode. Thanks to automatic continuous backup, data security plans, a Voice-over-IP phone system, offsite hosting of all of our core systems, we didn’t miss a beat.

Do you have a contingency plan for your agency? What is in it that we forgot to mention? Please add your thoughts in the comments below.

In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania every Groundhog Day up to 40,000 people gather to see if Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s most famous groundhog, will see his shadow. If he does, then tradition says we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter and people can prepare accordingly.

Do you have a “groundhog” in your agency? An early indicator that lets you know what to expect – and how to prepare for the future as a result. If not, think back over the last few years. When has your business gone up? When has it gone down? What preceded those changes?

Have a Groundhog

Managing a high-growth independent insurance agency is much easier if you have just a couple specific leading indicators you always watch. Not your sales or cash (those are lagging indicators – by the time they’re dropping there’s already a problem somewhere much earlier in your sales funnel). For many insurance agencies it might be something like the number of incoming phone calls, number of new quotes issued or number of inquiries via your web site. Whatever it is, make sure you have one. It can make the difference between having the time to prepare and being caught by surprise.

In our business there are several, but a couple that are much more reliable than others. Which brings us to the other important step.

Make Sure Your Groundhog is Accurate

Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow nearly 100 times, has not seen it 15 times, and nine years are unaccounted for, but his prediction as to whether there will be six more weeks of winter or not only has an accuracy rating of 39 per cent. That’s not very reliable. In fact it would make more sense to see his prediction and do the opposite.

So, look for those leading indicators in your agency, but always test the results against expectations. Otherwise you may find yourself in for a very long winter.

Photo courtesy of Aaron E. Silvers.