Most insurance agents start out quoting insurance policy renewals the same way…
Like most brand new insurance agents, I began my insurance sales career by grabbing a telephone book and calling business owners to see if I could offer a quote on their upcoming renewals. It was purely a “numbers game” at first. The reason for this “selling by numbers” mindset was because that’s how nearly every other producer in town was accustomed to selling insurance.
It was the status quo for insurance sales.
Stop Quoting Insurance Policy Renewals
If that mindset is also your current status quo, you will waste countless hours every month “quoting on renewals” that you’ll never actually win.
- Hours of driving
- Loss runs & claims data collection
- Putting together Acord applications and supplemental questionnaires
- Loss control and job site visits
- Negotiating terms & conditions with underwriters for ONLY quotes
- Preparing glossy proposals
- Meeting with the insured (again and again and again) to go over your quote
- Not to mention hours sitting by the telephone waiting to hear whether or not they’ll “go with you”
- Etc, etc, etc.
What a waste of your hours and the hours of your support staff!
One of the most profitable things that I (and so many other smarter-than-me producers as well) ever did was to simply stop quoting insurance renewals altogether. I would prospect like I usually did, but in most cases I simply chose not to offer quotes on renewals in a competitive bid arrangement. Unless I had access to a closed program that couldn’t be beat on either price or coverage, choosing not to “quote” was the best decision I ever made.
And if I ever did break that unwritten “no quoting” rule of mine, I usually regretted it in the end.
It’s quite interesting to see the expression on an insured’s face when you let them know you don’t quote insurance, and you’re not really interested in quoting theirs, either. They’re so amazed at that!
I was able to set myself apart from the competition simply due to that firm stance alone. I would–quite courteously, of course–inform the business owner that I didn’t need to “practice” quoting because I already had the answers they were looking for. I would then outline the answers I had to their problems and frustrations, explain the timeline of services I would guarantee it all to occur within, and openly share my proposed fee structure to make it happen.
My role in not quoting their insurance renewals was to get the insured to understand the VALUE I was suggesting to them.
UNDERSTAND THIS…
Insurance buyers absolutely hate bidding out their insurance every year, or even multiple times per year for each policy.
It’s confusing to the average non-insurance person, very frustrating, and quite expensive. Most insurance buyers would much rather trust one insurance producer who knows what she’s doing, give her PERMISSION to access all the carriers, and sign over their insurance to her via a Broker of Record letter.
Your job, as the insurance producer, is to provide value, offer solutions to the insured’s problems, and collect signed broker of record letters. Period.
SUMMARY: Stop quoting on the renewals of business owners who don’t know, like, or fully trust you. Spend the hours you’ll save by differentiating yourself in the marketplace as a problem solver in the insured’s micro niche. That’s part of the fastest, smartest, most ethical approach to building a $1,000,000 book of business.
Even though, and unfortunately, this approach does not work for all our clients, it sure should work for the majority of them. Finding ways to ‘differentiate yourself’ actually requires thinking!
I agree. Thanks for sharing, Michele!
Charles, what would be the most efficient way to accomplish getting the BORs? Is it possible to list the number of companies you would present the risk on one letter and get a signature and date? Or individual BORs. John
Hello John, and thanks for your comments!
You have to provide tangible benefits to the insured in order to secure BOR’s. For the most part, no insurance buyer cares about you, your agency, how long you’ve been in business, etc. What they care about is what you can do for them! And once you get more clarity, organization, and focus on doing that, winning the BOR is so much more easy to accomplish.
I can teach you how to do it both fast and effectively. Are you interested?
https://permissiongroup.com/sales-coaching/
Charles, can you elaborate on… “openly share my proposed fee structure to make it happen.” John
Transparency is everything.
Show the insured what you’ll do for them for the ENTIRE YEAR, and then show them (written) how much you would do it for. That can mean the normal commission paid by the carrier, or you can do a broker fee, or you can charge for various services, such as loss control, claims management, etc.