How Desert Insurance Solutions secures optimum results
2019 Agency of the Year: This independent insurance agency stepped up in an area with gaping client-service needs. (Part 2 of 3)
Editor’s Note: Conventional wisdom holds that independent agencies are going to vanish because today’s insureds want self-service. From what we see at NUPC, however, people are still looking to agencies for trusted advisors, especially when they’re making significant changes in their lives, whether it’s starting a new business, buying property or blending families — because nothing happens without insurance.
The most successful agencies look back at what they’ve done before that provides value to their clients and then continue such best practices. They also look ahead and access what must change so they can continue providing value to clients and grow their businesses in the future.
Today we are pleased to announce the second of three winners of the 2019 Agency of the Year Awards. The agency profile below includes insightful stories and strategies.
— Editor-in-Chief Rosalie Donlon
Carrie Babij knew early on that she wanted her own agency. Like many others in the industry, she’d landed in the field by accident when she was 20. Babij started her career with Allstate and later moved on to work at KeyBank, Brown & Brown, and Wells Fargo Insurance.
After spending most of her professional career in the Northwest, she decided to relocate to California’s Palm Springs area in 2011. After studying the area, Babij observed that none of the big brokers had a presence there and that few of the small community brokers doing business around Palm Springs were new. She also found that the area’s bigger commercial clients — as well as sophisticated personal clients — were buying insurance from brokers in Los Angeles, San Diego or another state entirely.
Babij’s dream was to create a better way to buy insurance, to provide outstanding service and a large-brokerage experience for the high-net-worth personal and midsized commercial clients that major brokers no longer appeared to want.
“I felt if someone opened here with a more sophisticated presence, there would be a lot more of that business here in this community,” says Babij, who is now president and owner of Desert Insurance Solutions Inc. “So I took a chance and started my agency from scratch.”
From the ground up
Before the doors first opened at her La Quinta, Calif.-based agency in January 2012, Babij learned all she could about the surrounding communities. She wanted to know what the opportunities looked like so she could design her agency to cater to those opportunities.
Her first step was to identify prospect quality and the intensity of competition. She learned that the greater Palm Springs area, which is also known as the Coachella Valley, scored well on both counts.
Babij’s next step was to secure carrier appointments. She credits getting the ones she wanted to her many years in the industry and the connections she forged along the way.
But, she says, preparation has its limits.
“As far as the business plan goes, I do it one year at a time. I couldn’t have known that first year where I would be today,” Babij says. “I don’t have a crystal ball, so I don’t try to pretend I do. So five-year planning makes no sense to me. I do it one year at a time.”
Although her company has grown to nearly $10 million in premiums in just six years, it didn’t get there without some setbacks along the way.
Wanting the best of everything for her agency in the early stages, Babij went to a well-known provider of insurance agency management systems. She soon realized, however, it was “the wrong system for a small startup agency.”
She switched to the QQ Catalyst agency system a year later. Babij especially liked that it was technology-forward, user-friendly and didn’t require a lot of training, which was ideal if she dropped someone without an insurance background into the system.
Free from the corporate bureaucracy of her past employers, Babij says she gets to do things her way as the producer at her agency. She developed her own style early on and says she never once made a cold-call, sent a cold-email or used a lead-buying service. Instead, Babij’s approach to selling centers on being authentic and consultative. She approaches new prospects just like their lawyer or financial advisor would: She tells them what she sees in their current situation, offers recommendations, and then leaves the ball in their court.
“I’m offering a professional service,” she says. “If somebody wants it, they’re going to buy it.”
Looking to the future
Like most other independent agency owners these days, Babij keeps a close eye on technology and social media. With some commercial clients, Babij says she learns, “more about how their business is changing by watching their social media than relying on them to notify me.” She communicates with less tech-savvy customers in whatever way they prefer.
Technology does make communications easier, which is key to Babij’s business as well as to her staff relationships. She prefers to keep in close touch with her staff of nine. She regularly sits and visits with each of them to see what’s going on in their lives. She also arranges staff trips to SeaWorld, provides advances on bonuses for house or car down payments, and frequently has kids and pets in the office. Babij wants staff to feel like family.
Turning her dream into reality took time, but Babij never doubted that she could do it. Today her agency has an office in California, and another in Arizona. A potential satellite office in the Northwest is on the horizon.
Babij says anyone chasing a similar dream should fasten their seat belt. “If you don’t chase your dream because you’re afraid you’ll fail, you’ve already failed.”
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