Marketing To Carriers: A Win-Win-Win Scenario

An effective marketing program will benefit you, your carriers, and your clients.

Unless you meet your customer’s needs, there’s no room for an insurer — let alone your agency. If the company doesn’t make money, the entire system falters. As long as both of these conditions are met, your agency can, and should, make a profit by working with the insurer and the customer to determine the character of a risk.

Bear in mind that, by its nature, underwriting is negative. As the “gatekeeper” for the insurer, underwriters must select risks — and, at times, it seems that they turn down more business than they accept. This tends to create a negative attitude, which you need to overcome by creating a “plateau of trust.” Building this trust will create a positive relationship that will benefit the customer, the insurer, and your agency alike.

Disclosing the character of a risk allows you to present it to the underwriter for tentative approval. The process begins by completing a three-point review:

• Pre-selection, based on the agency’s knowledge of the insurer’s eligibility requirements
• Physical inspection of the risk to obtain first-hand knowledge of the exposures
• A personal interview with the prospect

The agency then phones in the risk and furnishes a summary that covers these categories:

Begin with the General Features of the risk, lead into its Best Features, and then finish with the Worst Features. Disclosing the Worst Features last has a positive impact on acceptability, lending candor about all of the facts, no matter how unattractive they might be.

If the underwriter is favorably impressed, submit an application. This approach should save you a significant amount of time and lead to a dramatic improvement in your rate of acceptability.