In most agencies today, the total commission of a Personal Lines account will equal or exceed the commission of a Non-exception Commercial account. In this document, Jack Fries asks why you’d pay a CSR more money to handle a lower commission account.
Most traditional agencies separate Personal Lines totally from Commercial Lines. Because of the varied coverages and higher premiums, it was thought that Commercial CSRs required more training, had more experience, and should be paid more. Times have changed. Offering BOP policies with mostly packaged or “canned” coverages means that agency owners usually separate Commercial Lines accounts into “Non-exception” (BOP) and “Exception” accounts (the larger and more complex).
What’s more, the premiums for many BOP policies are far lower than those for Auto and Home coverages. In most agencies today, the total commission of a Personal Lines account will equal or exceed the commission of a Non-exception Commercial account. Since that’s the case, why would you pay a CSR more money to handle a lower commission account?
The solution: Create a new Business and Personal Insurance Department that combines the service and sales functions of both Personal Lines and Non-Exception Commercial Lines business. Choose only the most experienced and trained CSRs to handle the Exception accounts because this class of business requires the highest standard of service.
Organize the service function in the Business and Personal Lines department so that CSRs will be involved only with the customer contact and data entry portion of each transaction. You’ll need to create a Quality Control system to process all non-online requests to carriers and all of the paperwork received from them.
Making these changes can drastically improve the service that you provide to all your customers, while increasing the number of policies per customer in the Business and Personal Insurance Department. What’s more, the agency will be able to provide exceptional service to the Exception Accounts.