TAKE CHARGE OF CARRIER PLANNING
by John Jaques
When looking at profit improvement, most agency owners analyze and plan for new production, client service, staffing, and expense control. However, right after your employees and before your clients, carrier management should be a key element of profit and growth planning.
As you begin your business-planning cycle in the coming months, it will be important to assign a specific individual in the agency to be responsible for carrier planning, carrier relations, problem solving, contract negotiation/maximization, coordination of placement (for pricing and volume commitments), product development, and coordination of sales efforts to focus on the types of client your carriers want most.
Let's say that your agency has eight specific business segments:
- Large Commercial Lines
- Standard Commercial Lines
- Small Commercial Lines
- VIP Personal Lines
- Standard Personal Lines
- Life and Financial Products
- Accident/Health
- Specialty/Program Business
Each segment often has its own set of key carriers and product needs, and should have an assigned 'carrier management' point person responsible for developing the agency's carrier strategy and the game plan for that segment.
In addition to formulating a carrier game plan for the segment, the carrier point person should schedule carrier visits and create a standard agenda for the visits. The regularly held meetings should cover unsuccessful submissions, a review of renewals coming up and any changes needed, a review of agency renewals you might want to remarket to the company, any operating problems, a review of the five to 10 classes the carrier branch has written the most of in the last three to six months, and so forth.
Start making disciplined, structured carrier management a part of your business-planning process. Face it: Without price, capacity, and underwriting flexibility, no amount of customer service will help your agency grow to new profit levels.