Beware The Pitfalls Of Cross-Selling 
We all know how valuable cross-selling is to independent agencies. Numbers I have read suggest profit margins on the second sale are two-to-three times higher than the first sale and retention is 60 percent higher. Yet the average number of policies per customer has not changed in independent agencies in 20 years.
How can something so important, something preached constantly for year upon year, be so elusive? The truth is that cross-selling is a complicated process and it fails for many logical reasons.
One reason is that too many producers sell price. When an agent or broker sells price, they build fear into their own psyche–they fear someone else will offer a better price. Add to this the fact that, to most people, the loss of a dollar is psychologically twice as valuable as the gain of a dollar.
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