Search CompleteMarkets

...10 years ago, telemarketing sales centers were being extolled as the greatest ...

...r associations (clusters, service centers, virtual insurance agencies, and so ...

...some carriers take more 'care and feeding' than others. Do they drain more fro...

...ls and other lead sources such as centers of influence (more about these later...te. Miscellaneous List Sources Centers of influence: Many influential pe...

... effective in qualifying and prioritizing leads, thus increasing the effectiveness of the producer's time. FAX FOR PROFIT We've all come to rely heavily on the time-saving convenience of the fax. But how many of us are using it for direct marketing? And how many of us realize the potential savings of direct marketing by fax? Computer programs now allow your computer to do the faxing-no one needs to stand and feed paper into the machine. That means less labor. Plus, such computer programs allow you to run the fax through the night. That means lower phone-line charges. Furthermore, in most cases, a fax is delivered to the recipient immediately, rather than being lost in a stack of daily mail. Incidentally, my own business, Compliance Publishing Division, began using a combination of faxing and ... a lower-cost basis, this concept can even cross over to local radio programming and the phrase: as heard on radio! ' Tele-mail' not only gets the attention of your prospect, but also helps build credibility, which further increases the response ratio. TELEMARKETING: OUT OR IN? The only constant is change! Telemarketing offers one of the best examples. Just 10 years ago, telemarketing sales centers were being extolled as the greatest prospecting tool since doorbells. Slowly the concept began to take hold as more agencies reported successes. Beset by a daily onslaught of prospecting calls, businesspersons grew afraid to pick up their phones and citizens began turning on their answering machines during dinner hour in self-defense. Now many companies are disbanding their telemarketing departments in the belief that such marketing has become ineffective. Rather ...

... year. Although most companies aren't aggressively expanding their agency plans, good carriers are still looking for quality over quantity. Can your agency offer them a distribution outlet that will provide a flow of business they want to write? And what about the markets you've been wondering if you should keep? It might sound like a contradiction to say you should get rid of carriers, but you can't afford to feed markets that aren't long-term players in the types of business you're best at. Look at your staff. Do you have the sales and service capacity you need? Can your salespeople sell value rather than price? Are your account managers providing quality customer service, or are they already spread too thin? Will they have the capacity to assimilate the additional remarketing that'll be required? Are there ... Your staff is already seeing the pricing trends. Even though they might need some help organizing their thoughts about it, they can help you identify your most competitive markets and your biggest problems. Look at your customers. Are there particular customer segments that'll be most affected by pricing and placement problems? Many agencies already rank their customers based on their importance to the agency (revenue size, centers of influence, and so forth) . This year you should also rank your customers based on the impact of the marketplace — pricing increases and problems finding coverage. Don't overlook Personal Lines. The impact of losing any one account might not be as great as losing one of your large Commercial accounts. But in our experience Personal Lines is generally profitable business that you want to keep. It's ...

... , and grandfathered bank holding companies that have been selling Property/Casualty coverages for years may decide that they no longer want to be bothered with something that produces such a low return on equity. A number of these books are heavy in Homeowners, Farmowners, and Fire policies, since most of the accounts came from mortgage customers and were never expanded. Agencies anxious to get more premium dollars to feed their companies can find a wealth of additional sales opportunities in these monoline books. They can also land some significant rollover bonuses with their carriers by consolidating the small chunks of premium that the bank agency has routinely placed with county mutuals. By either buying or agreeing to manage the bank agency's expirations, a local agency can tap into this sales potential, ride on the coattails of the bank's credibility ... write insurance for every single bank client. There must be no more than three insurance companies involved and preferably only one that will give you a consistency agreement so that you don't have go searching for a new carrier every year. The company should have an 800 number for direct claim reporting and routine servicing. It might even be worth giving up a couple of points of commission to use their service center. There should be complete upload and download as well as online quoting and policy issuance. Premium payments should be through automatic account debit or via credit or debit card. If the agency maintains the servicing duties, the service reps should take calls as first available' rather than having actual account assigned to them. Sales should also be handled as efficiently as possible. Alert bank customers to the ...