Moving policyholder conversations beyond price
A survey finds consumers turn to friends and family more often than agents for home insurance recommendations.
Although agents live insurance day in and day out, a recent survey found 44% of consumers trust friends and family for recommendations on home insurance, while just 7% trust an agent, Plymouth Rock Home Assurance reported.
While consumers hold the opinions of friends and family in high regard, they don’t completely disregard agents. Rather, they want to verify what the insurance professional is telling them with another trusted source, according to Bill Martin, CEO of Plymouth Rock Home Assurance.
“It is not that they don’t appreciate agents,” he says. “The agents I think generally meet the first bar for customers, which is ‘do some price shopping for me.’ Agents are good at that.”
However, he says agents should be moving conversations beyond price and more toward what coverages are appropriate.
“This isn’t about whether someone got coverage for cheap. It is about whether or not they got the right coverage for an event that might take away their lifelong earnings. It can’t be treated like an airline-seat problem,” Martin says. “We want to cut down on the length of time someone spends looking at price and give them more time to think about what coverage is appropriate.”
Additionally, as agents spend more time talking about coverage, policyholders become less price sensitive. This also gives the insurance professional time to better understand their clients’ needs, Martin says, as an agent’s experience can help them identify coverage needs that consumers often overlook when going the self-service route. This can also make policyholders view their agents as trusted advisors rather than simply a salesperson.
“It is really important to talk about the quality of the company and coverage. If they don’t talk about that, then they are talking about airline seats,” Martin says. “There are companies that carry one-third the capital requirements that other carriers do. Of course, they are cheaper. They have less at stake. Should that be important for consumers? It will next time a major storm hits. That is a huge conversation to have, otherwise, you are making the person price sensitive. They’ll get what they paid for, by the way.”
Related: