Related: The great website 'swindle': Are agency portals really worth the investment?

It appears agencies are more afraid of the potential of attracting spam than they are excited by the prospect of gaining a potential long-term paying customer—or properly servicing a current customer. They hide behind a frustrating defense of rigid forms and the Captcha process. Have you ever thrown up your hands and closed your browser after three or four attempts to interpret the correct phrase or word?

Include e-mail contact information

Site developers will tell you that spammers have bots waiting to pounce on email addresses and create havoc, but what is the reality?

Over the last few years, I've reviewed hundreds of insurance agency sites. About one-third of them don't have adequate email information. The other two-thirds include email addresses with their staff list. If there were dire consequences to listing emails, I'm sure they would have changed their sites long ago.

I asked Rodney Allebach of the Farmers Union Insurance Agency if he felt listing the email addresses created more spam. He said, "No. The addresses have given a prospect or current client the email address for the agent, at their fingertip."  

Customer convenience is paramount

Bryan Kouri of Kouri Insurance Agency added, "We feel the convenience to the customer outweighs any disadvantage." Since most sites draw very few organic searchers, it would seem the people inconvenienced would be an agency's current customers.

Spam should be properly handled, not avoided at the cost of servicing your customers. Set your filters accordingly. You can set custom spam filter policies within your agency to suit each person's needs. Your provider is probably already doing a fairly good job of filtering. 

Should the spammers find your email address they can't use it to hack into your online banking or take over your life unless have unlimited time on their hands. If they are that good, they could probably just guess your email address by trying combinations of your name and the site domain. 

(Image: Shutterstock.com)

2. Play fair

A large, general agency I worked for nearly collapsed due to the number of E&O losses paid. I was charged with developing techniques and procedures to avoid E&O. I wrote a manual, only to have our corporate parent's legal department tell me to destroy it because it would become prima facie evidence in an E&O loss.

I immediately started my own general agency. The first thing I did was to implement a stringent E&O prevention program. Nonetheless, my agency has been brought into E&O claims numerous times. We've never paid a loss, but we've paid a considerable amount for legal defense. If your agency handles a lot of transactions, it's just a matter of time before someone has a problem.  You need to have clean hands, and the plaintiff's attorney will review your website.

Some of the things you don't want to say on your website are:

• We're your one-stop shop. 
• Come to us for tailor-made insurance. 
• We will assist you with all your insurance needs.
• We will assess your needs and provide the perfect policy.
• We use routine policy reviews to help keep our customers' coverage in line with changing insurance requirements and their personal needs.

Think of yourself as a waiter in a five-star restaurant. You may suggest an entrée, but you would never order for the patron. Your role is to provide advice so that your customer can make a good decision about their needs.

Your website and other advertising methods should reflect that role.  More than half of the agency websites I've reviewed contained phrases that would make a plaintiff's attorney grin.

Don't overstate what you intend to do.

With all that in mind let's take a look at the above statements and reword them:

• We have relationships with a large number of quality companies who provide an array of coverage options. 
• We will assist you in making proper coverage decisions.
• We will assist you with your insurance needs.
• We will help you assess your needs and provide policy choices for you to select.
• We will use coverage reviews to help you keep your coverage in line with changing insurance requirements and your personal needs.

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

3. Don't hit people

Don't criticize your competitors.

This includes calling out direct writers as inadequate, if you're an independent agent. People don't understand the difference between the distribution systems and will much sooner be turned off by your negative remarks than they will be educated.

I believe in the advantage of working with an independent agent. That conversation should be conducted face-to-face and should be filled with positives about your agency rather than negatives about others.