How today's insurance agents thrive in commercial lines
The right technology makes all the difference for agencies looking to grow their commercial lines business.
Many insurance agencies are looking to diversify and grow their businesses by adding commercial lines.
But that’s often easier said than done. Selling and delivering commercial lines is complex. It includes finding new markets, working with carriers to quote, and delivering the right policies. To do it right, agencies need focused strategies and the right support.
Hugh Burgess, CEO of Vindati, an MGA offering specialty insurance products for agents on an InsurTech platform, and Jason Walker, managing partner of Smart Harbor, a digital technology solutions provider for insurance agents, recently had a conversation about how agents can thrive in commercial lines.
Many agents today are trying to expand their commercial lines books. What are the top three strategies they should consider?
Burgess:
- Be efficient through tech. Commercial insurance involves more products per client and often requires bringing different products and services from different carriers together.
- Specialize. It’s difficult to quickly be able to handle all of the numerous types of commercial clients, so specializing in specific segments such as smaller retail stores, office/real estate, restaurants or construction can pay dividends.
- Be a claims advocate. Nothing breeds customer loyalty like above & beyond service during clients’ true moments of need. The claims process for many of the commercial lines products is much more complicated and less understood than personal lines. The insured is very likely going to lean on the agent a great deal during these critical times to be their advocate and expert representative.
Walker:
- Craft a simplified marketing plan. Know your top target markets and build experiences that cater to those audiences. If you are attempting to say that you are an expert at all things commercial, you will earn the moniker “jack of all trades, master of none.”
- Write a love letter. Once you know the target, all of your communications should read like a love letter that speaks to their needs. Show empathy, an understanding of the industry challenges, and ways that you can solve their deepest concerns.
- Proliferate. Once you know what you want to say, share it everywhere and often — at networking events, on social media, in your brick and mortar location, on your website, in your video messages, via email, in your advertising campaigns, and with appointed carriers.
In commercial lines, what are the biggest challenges to delivering an Amazon-like shopping experience and how can they be overcome?
Walker: Businesses must be able to interact with agencies just like personal lines consumers. The ability to quickly process and issue coverage is necessary. But underwriting complexity, dependence on multiple rating portals, and the heavy use of paper and phone calls to arrive at a decision creates a problem — it needs to be transformed.
Burgess: It is complex, but technology can help simplify it. Commercial lines clients buy 4.5 different types of insurance policies, according to research. But how do you deliver quality and consistency when the products come from different carriers with different processes? Technology provides the answer.
What types of technologies are critical to creating an excellent customer shopping experience?
Walker: The top technologies agencies need: a digitized intake system, a quoting platform that returns a bindable quote quickly, e-signature capabilities, and marketing automation that helps grow the business.
Burgess: Agents are looking for a real-time experience, to be able to access and rate/quote/bind/issue/bill products like auto, workers’ compensation and BOP. This can free up valuable time for them to work on harder-to-find, complex and time-consuming commercial coverages.
Commercial insurance is ripe for innovation. What can agents learn from InsurTechs to make their customers’ experience better?
Burgess: InsurTechs are disrupting traditional commercial insurance markets in B2B as well as B2C. Partnerships between agents and InsurTechs are already proving to be a powerful combination and bridge to the future, delivering savings to clients without sacrificing quality of coverage or claim advocacy.
Walker: Agents should follow the lead of great InsurTechs that guide — and delight the customer — through technology.
Are certain commercial lines more suited to digital than others?
Burgess: Builders risk is a good example. Builders risk coverage requires a lot of information about the construction project to be covered. With InsurTech, bringing the new scientific data and cat modelling around specific geographic locations instantly into a rating, the amount of data and questions on the project can be dramatically reduced and allow a tech driven process for the quote/bind/issue/bill the policy.
As the founder and CEO of Vindati, Hugh Burgess works with agents to provide them with a traditional and digital shopping experience for small to mid-sized business specialty products.
As managing partner of Smart Harbor, Jason Walker (jwalker@smartharbor.com) works with carriers, MGAs, agents and large agency groups to leverage digital tools to increase business and identify market growth opportunities.
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