Insurance Agency idea

[GeoffP]

Maybe it's just my luck.... but it seems that customer service at a lot of insurance agencies sucks. Captive or non-captive, the agents either drop the ball or take their sweet a** time getting back to you.

I'm leaning toward opening an insurance agency targeting business owners focused on radically exceptional customer service. As in, you're opening a new service line and/or office, you call us, and all the insurance needed is done same day or quote provided for prospective project.

Is there anyone already doing this? Anyone had an insurance agency before who has insight on how to get carrier appointments? If this were to launch, does it seem like it provides value?

 

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[Johnny boy]

I say any business with shitty customer service is a great opportunity.

1. It's easy to get customers since nobody is fighting over them
2. There must be lots of opportunity if nobody even wants to call you back. They must have a lot of other important customers to attend to.

This has been the case for my lawn care business. Customers are easy to come by, and the competition is so awful, so we can easily keep them signed up with minimal effort.

Car sales is a tough business though, and you can tell because people will harass you even if you're just there for service, or you bought a car 4 years ago. Must be tough selling cars if they resort to that! And guess what? It's actually true. It's very hard to sell a lot of cars. I remember calling lists and lists of people, never letting a customer just leave without trying to work out a deal, etc. I only want to do business with people who actually want to sign up. I hate chasing.

So your observation that insurance salespeople won't get back to you is a beautiful sign that it must be full of opportunity, at least that's my opinion.

 

[GeoffP]

I say any business with shitty customer service is a great opportunity.

1. It's easy to get customers since nobody is fighting over them
2. There must be lots of opportunity if nobody even wants to call you back. They must have a lot of other important customers to attend to.

This has been the case for my lawn care business. Customers are easy to come by, and the competition is so awful, so we can easily keep them signed up with minimal effort.

Car sales is a tough business though, and you can tell because people will harass you even if you're just there for service, or you bought a car 4 years ago. Must be tough selling cars if they resort to that! And guess what? It's actually true. It's very hard to sell a lot of cars. I remember calling lists and lists of people, never letting a customer just leave without trying to work out a deal, etc. I only want to do business with people who actually want to sign up. I hate chasing.

So your observation that insurance salespeople won't get back to you is a beautiful sign that it must be full of opportunity, at least that's my opinion.

I know a guy who makes a killing selling used cars and was super helpful when I was buying a car for my wife (even though I wasn't buying from him!). If you provide an exceptional customer experience, people will line up at your door to buy from you.

 

[Johnny boy]

I know a guy who makes a killing selling used cars and was super helpful when I was buying a car for my wife (even though I wasn't buying from him!). If you provide an exceptional customer experience, people will line up at your door to buy from you.

how long has he been selling cars?

 

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[GeoffP]

how long has he been selling cars?

5 to 6 years at this point. He owns his own lot.

 

[Kevin88660]

Maybe it's just my luck.... but it seems that customer service at a lot of insurance agencies sucks. Captive or non-captive, the agents either drop the ball or take their sweet a** time getting back to you.

I'm leaning toward opening an insurance agency targeting business owners focused on radically exceptional customer service. As in, you're opening a new service line and/or office, you call us, and all the insurance needed is done same day or quote provided for prospective project.

Is there anyone already doing this? Anyone had an insurance agency before who has insight on how to get carrier appointments? If this were to launch, does it seem like it provides value?

I am selling financial products which includes insurance.

There are agencies And individuals that do a good service. Unfortunately many more do not.

Because agents are only paid through new sales, so they routinely classify the clients who request for service as two groups- those whom they can sell more products or those whom they cannot and getting classified as “no business potential” in their mind.

Because insurance products cannot be switched easily. This is due to Health underwriting and heavy sunk cost paid by customer in early surrender charges. This results agents to view the customers’ worth as the ability to generate future new business.

This leads to only two kinds of insurance agents who do a good service to their clients. First type are the natural good people who believe that everyone deserve a good service regardless of future business potential, for ethical reasons. Another group of agents who understand this believe that servicing is a good long term strategy to have future business and referal, rather than wasting money and time to acquire new clients.

As a whole the industry has issue of being Stucked with systematic bias Of prioritizing short term profits, when you evaluate performance by monthly, quarterly and yearly. The issue is not because people do not understand that long term thinking is important, but no one can agree or feel For certain what long term metrics is.

I doubt you can easily find someone who knows this sheet more than I do

 

[GeoffP]

I am selling financial products which includes insurance.

There are agencies And individuals that do a good service. Unfortunately many more do not.

Because agents are only paid through new sales, so they routinely classify the clients who request for service as two groups- those whom they can sell more products or those whom they cannot and getting classified as “no business potential” in their mind.

Because insurance products cannot be switched easily. This is due to Health underwriting and heavy sunk cost paid by customer in early surrender charges. This results agents to view the customers’ worth as the ability to generate future new business.

This leads to only two kinds of insurance agents who do a good service to their clients. First type are the natural good people who believe that everyone deserve a good service regardless of future business potential, for ethical reasons. Another group of agents who understand this believe that servicing is a good long term strategy to have future business and referal, rather than wasting money and time to acquire new clients.

As a whole the industry has issue of being Stucked with systematic bias Of prioritizing short term profits, when you evaluate performance by monthly, quarterly and yearly. The issue is not because people do not understand that long term thinking is important, but no one can agree or feel For certain what long term metrics is.

I doubt you can easily find someone who knows this sheet more than I do

Hi,

I'm not talking about life or health insurance, but rather property/casualty/surplus lines. I've sold life insurance before and it's too much of a PITA....

 

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[Kevin88660]

Hi,

I'm not talking about life or health insurance, but rather property/casualty/surplus lines. I've sold life insurance before and it's too much of a PITA....

I sell that too. The incentives given by the insurance companies to sell them is significantly less because underwriting profit for commercial insurance is extremely low. It is a lead generation for me to sell health and life. It is easy to sell them to business owners because these are must buy. They do not have a choice and most are mandated by law.

Business owners are typically more affluent customers. I would be shocked to know if they receive a bad service, because their buying power is definitely not low.

 

[GeoffP]

I sell that too. The incentives given by the insurance companies to sell them is significantly less because underwriting profit for commercial insurance is extremely low. It is a lead generation for me to sell health and life. It is easy to sell them to business owners because these are must buy. They do not have a choice and most are mandated by law.

Business owners are typically more affluent customers. I would be shocked to know if they receive a bad service, because their buying power is definitely not low.

I control what is turning into a six figure group of insurance policies..... you'd be amazed how apathetic the agents are. I'm better off just calling the Hartford direct and doing whatever I want to do direct with them.

 

[tpuffer]

I control what is turning into a six figure group of insurance policies..... you'd be amazed how apathetic the agents are. I'm better off just calling the Hartford direct and doing whatever I want to do direct with them.

I've been in the insurance industry for 10 years both as an agent and company underwriter. I can tell you that a lot of agent are not that great at providing customer service. Most care about getting you in the door and then it's up to the CSR to take care of you. There are situations where it's the insurance company that are the ones taking a bit longer to respond to the agents - this can be due to systems or high workload.

For an almost 6 figure account for the agent that already has the insurance for you they should have everything ready for the renewal at a minimum 30 days prior to present to you.

If you are looking to get a quote from other agencies then for an account that size it would be pretty tough to get a quote same day - generally.

There are good agents out there that probably have a better option than only Hartford Direct.

 

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[GeoffP]

I've been in the insurance industry for 10 years both as an agent and company underwriter. I can tell you that a lot of agent are not that great at providing customer service. Most care about getting you in the door and then it's up to the CSR to take care of you. There are situations where it's the insurance company that are the ones taking a bit longer to respond to the agents - this can be due to systems or high workload.

For an almost 6 figure account for the agent that already has the insurance for you they should have everything ready for the renewal at a minimum 30 days prior to present to you.

If you are looking to get a quote from other agencies then for an account that size it would be pretty tough to get a quote same day - generally.

There are good agents out there that probably have a better option than only Hartford Direct.

Hi,

So then do you think an agency built on exceptional service would resonate? What pitfalls, aside from appointments, am I looking at?

 

[Kasimir]

I don't have that much experience in the insurance industry. But I know that here in Switzerland the market for insurance is heated. And there are some insurances with pretty good customer support, but now due to the fight over costumer and the fact that there is a lot more competition the customer support is getting worse and worse.
But if you can create a company which puts a big focus on customer satisfaction I don't see any problem. But I'd also focus on customer satisfaction after you got the client even if that's not great for the business. But you really have to revolutionize the game and change how it is played right now.
And do what nobody is doing. I strongly believe that it could work perfectly. Just sad that I didn't come up with that idea. But good luck!!

 

[Kevin88660]

From my own experience in this industry clients buying insurance are your “secondary clients”. Your primary clients are insurance companies because you are their distributors. You do not manufacture or design the products. You have no say on the claim process. The reality of the business is that you are helping insurance companies to solve their biggest problem-Sales.

So the biggest problem facing agencies on the macro level is recruitment and retainment of agents. If you understand the business that since you do not pay a basic overhead on your agents are small and carry little risk. The more you expand the profitable your agency is going to be.

Commercial insurance according to my experience are easy to sell, as you know it too and you want to do it because it is relatively easy. The profit cut that insurance company is going to give you is also going to be smaller compared to life and health, because they know it too. Why spending big bucks on agencies when clients call my hotline for quotes? There is also another issue on talent retainment when it comes to commercial insurance which are largely recurring payments. This means the upfront distribution charges is small and it is hard for the individual agent to make a living at the start of the career/business without basic income. There is a reason why most individual agents and agencies sell health and life despite it being a pain in the a$$.

A lot of things are “good Slogans” but reality might be different. If you tell your agent to provide a good service instead of focusing on sales...and good these good services do not translate into sales in the next three months he might be out of the business. The same client who complains about “poor service” might be the fellow who buys from the cheapest provider with the most wonderful promotion, and habitually complains why there is no service later...

I do believe that service has an important role. But it is not the most painful issue in this business. The most painful issue in this business is customer acquisition cost. If you can have training system and Strategy to lower that for your agents everything will fall in place. When you have consistent leads and business for the agents there is less anxiety for sales then there is more incentives for the agents to focus on the long term-good service. A hungry man cannot think of the long term. When your agents stay and prosper, your revenue grow.

 

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[abcdefgh]

I say any business with shitty customer service is a great opportunity.

1. It's easy to get customers since nobody is fighting over them
2. There must be lots of opportunity if nobody even wants to call you back. They must have a lot of other important customers to attend to.

This has been the case for my lawn care business. Customers are easy to come by, and the competition is so awful, so we can easily keep them signed up with minimal effort.

Car sales is a tough business though, and you can tell because people will harass you even if you're just there for service, or you bought a car 4 years ago. Must be tough selling cars if they resort to that! And guess what? It's actually true. It's very hard to sell a lot of cars. I remember calling lists and lists of people, never letting a customer just leave without trying to work out a deal, etc. I only want to do business with people who actually want to sign up. I hate chasing.

So your observation that insurance salespeople won't get back to you is a beautiful sign that it must be full of opportunity, at least that's my opinion.

True. There have been plenty of times where a company's garbage-a$$ customer service has left me looking for competitors with no better service. At that point, I'm practically praying for a new competitor to show up.

 

[tpuffer]

Hi,

So then do you think an agency built on exceptional service would resonate? What pitfalls, aside from appointments, am I looking at?

Any business with exceptional customer service is going to resonate.

Starting an insurance agency isn't as simple as it seems. You need to get appointed by insurance companies. They are going to want you to commit to writing a certain level of premium.

There are a lot of other things to consider as with any business. If you do some research on agencies in your area and identify that you can do things better then there could be an opportunity.

 

[Kevin88660]

True. There have been plenty of times where a company's garbage-a$$ customer service has left me looking for competitors with no better service. At that point, I'm practically praying for a new competitor to show up.

As someone who has quite a lot of experience with customer service, the root cost of customer service Issue is not attitude but cost.

Money! Surprise!

Business will invest in overhead and better systems if customer are willing to pay for better services, not just the best sales quotations In a sales promotion.

Much of the financial service is still stuck with a heavy sales/promotion driven, very spartan and lean (do only what is necessary) customer service culture.

And the end of the day is a deep productocracy issue, to what extend can you drive better customer experience without raising the cost/and eventually as product price too much?

 

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