-Responsiveness. One of our selling points to our clients is that we respond quickly to our clients' questions. We're able to make this claim only when our wholesalers respond quickly to our requests.

-Clarity. The marketplace is constantly changing, and insurance policies consistently grow more complex. Our wholesalers are the experts in the coverage they provide. When our companies and wholesalers are clear in answering our questions, we can give our clients the correct answers to theirs.

-Partnership. We don't simply flood the market with applications. In fact, we work with only five wholesalers, which helps us build a real sense of partnership with them. We see this choice as our responsibility to our clients. The process of issuing policies is wrought with potential problems, which always seem to surface at just the wrong time. Our partnership with our wholesalers helps us solve such problems more quickly.

The leadership of any organization is ultimately responsible for building this relationship-centered attitude. The approach that the leader takes is the approach that will filter down through every employee-and it might take just one person in the chain to destroy the relationship.

Michael Warfield: For the past year, we have focused on building good relationships by ensuring we're a good fit with our partners and by maintaining a high level of interaction.

We represent about 30 carriers through our brokerage operations and about 20 carriers as an MGA. On both sides of our operation, our goal is to interact with each company-and I mean other than when we're submitting business-once or twice a year. For prospective carriers-and we estimate there are approximately 60 to 70 we might want to interact with in the future-we simply want to maintain a presence. We monitor these carriers' comments and actions for indications of what they're considering for the future. For instance, we might observe that a carrier is moving toward a new class of business in which we're already successful, in which case we might seek a relationship with it.

For our brokerage operations, part of finding a good fit with carriers is ensuring they really want representation in our territory. An appointment is nice, but it doesn't mean much if we're not needed. We also want to be sure a company can service our producers. We have at times obtained an appointment with a company, only to realize later that its underwriters were too busy to handle the business we brought in.

As an MGA, the first thing we look for in a carrier is someone with strong knowledge of a particular class of business. We bring a lot to the table for our carriers, and we want them to bring their expertise-especially in the area of underwriting. We also want to ensure companies are comfortable with giving us the pen, something we have often found easier said than done.

We also strive for a high level of interaction with retail producers. Outside of providing quotes, we want somebody from our organization to visit with each of our producers, face-to-face, at least once a year. In addition, we want to have other contact with them (e.g., via fax or e-mail) at least twice a month. This type of contact helps us maintain our "branding" with our retail agencies.

Our communication efforts center on learning some important things about our agencies and helping them understand what's important to us. First, we find out what their current needs are. Are we "touching" an agency in every possible area, or does their mix of business include additional market segments that we could serve? Repeated interaction with an agency also strengthens our relationship by allowing us to get to know more people at an agency, such as the CSRs who support the agents. The third thing we want to learn is what an agency's growth plans are. We're investing our resources by working with an agency, and we want to know how that investment could pay off in the future.

We want our agencies to be aware of everything we offer, in terms of both coverage products and our service standards, so they will turn to us when they have a need we can fill. Thoroughness is important to us as well-we are clear about our expectations with submissions, so agencies will give us the quality we are looking for.

Brad Dickler: We always speak about our MGAs and wholesalers as our partners. Building a good relationship with these partners requires us to emphasize the elements of a good experience for them. Unless an insurance product is unbelievably cheap or its coverage unbelievably broad, we have to go beyond price or coverage to create such an experience. This first means providing superior technical skill. Thus we devote considerable time to ensuring that our own people have sufficient expertise-we want them to know what they're talking about. We must be able to trust the information we receive from our partners, just as their clients must trust the information they receive about us. When we deal with wholesalers, the information we get about an account is often second- or third-hand. We frequently work at a quick pace and on exposures of millions of dollars. We can handle business at this pace only if we trust the information we're using.

Our interest in functioning as problem solvers is important. This is especially relevant in the E&S market. Our legal system conveniently creates lots of opportunities for us in this segment, but we frequently find those opportunities in the uncharted waters of new exposures. Outlines of the risks in which an insurer may or may not be interested are useful, but a carrier that shows a willingness to solve a client's problem will differentiate itself from the competition.

An important challenge to relationships right now is the generational transition of agency ownership. Some long-standing relationships are changing as agencies are passed from one generation to the next. It will be important for the older generation to ensure that the corporate philosophy at the heart of their relationships is maintained. This effort includes not just passing a sense of the value of relationships to the next generation, but also the training and knowledge that make them effective.

Mark Wells: Steve, from a retail agent's point of view, what information do you seek about a carrier, and how do you get it?

Steve Brown: This is where we depend on the wholesalers we work with. We expect our wholesalers to not just help us understand the specifics of a policy and the policy form, but also to tell us about the issuing carrier's overall quality and responsiveness. For instance, until a claim occurs, we won't know what kind of experience to expect when working with a carrier on one. We depend on our wholesaler to tell us what we should expect.

Mark Wells: Brad, what do you look for in a retail producer, and how do you get your information?

Brad Dickler: The quality of a retail producer is a significant variable to us, and we depend on our general agents to qualify the agents who ultimately sell our coverage. The quality of the GA's efforts to qualify those retailers affects the integrity of our transactions. We pay attention to our retailers' performance and often ask our GA who the retailer will be for certain business. In some cases, alarms might go off at our end if we are aware that a particular retailer has a bad reputation.

Mark Wells: What kinds of things do you do to make it easy for producers to do business with you?

Steve Brown: Our first step is ensuring we partner with the right people. Then we ask what they expect from us-and we give them our expectations-early in our relationship. So our carriers know, for instance, that after we send a submission, we call to follow up quickly, asking if the carrier has received it and where the submission is in the carrier's workflow.

Brad Dickler: It's easier to do business when our GAs prequalify accounts-including the retail agent, not just the ultimate buyer. It helps if the GA asks some important questions before we get involved: What must the price be and what coverages are absolutely necessary for an account, and what is our estimated chance of getting the business? It also speeds things up if the GAs are technically capable and have access to all the information we might need. We don't like having to go through three levels of command to find someone who has the information we need to make a decision on an account.

Mark Wells: How important is price?

Steve Brown: Price is clearly one of the important elements. We must be "in the game" and deliver a price that makes sense to a client. But it's not nearly as important as ensuring we're providing the right coverage for a client's exposures. This is especially true in the E&S market. Our clients know why they're talking to us-their exposures didn't fit a standard market, or they couldn't get the limits they wanted. So most of the time, their primary expectation when they come to us is to get the coverage, and the price is secondary at best.

Brad Dickler: Especially during a soft market, some people do sell on price. But this never leads to the kind of long-term relationship we look for with a client. We try to remain "in the pack" on price, and to be a leader in terms of expertise and service.

Michael Warfield: I've seen the surveys that consistently rank price as about the fifth-most important factor in the buying decision, and at times I question whether that's really true. But when your primary goal is to solve a particular problem for a client, finding the lowest price is not always a possibility-especially, as Steve said, in the E&S market. It's our job to communicate to our clients that getting the right coverage for a given exposure is more important than price.