As competition increases and prices keep dropping, most agents agree it’s tough to grow right now. To start the year on a positive note, General Casualty interviewed five agents across its 25-state territory who posted exceptional growth numbers in 2006. We asked one simple question: How did you do it?
The answers came down to writing new business, retaining existing customers and providing the best service around.
New business
Mark Young: We’re not doing anything earth-shattering to write new business. Beating down doors is a slow process, so we focus on getting referrals and that’s been our success. When we get a referral we thank our customer – we might take them to a ball game or buy them a bottle of wine – so they know how much we appreciate it.
Jim Elrod: We stay focused on growing, no matter the market. We get new customers from referrals and from identifying the business we want to write and then build relationships with those individuals. It’s a lot of work and it may take years, but it pays off. You earn that business and it stays with you. We don’t even advertise because we don’t want customers who shop on price alone or who have a questionable history.
Tom Pupeter: We’ve been successful with cross-selling. It would be really hard to find one of our customers who doesn’t have an umbrella or who hasn’t been offered one.
Greg Paulsen: We’ve written new accounts thanks to the great relationships we have with our underwriters. They have longevity and the knowledge to look at the whole account – not just the fine print in the manual. If we say “this is a good account,” they believe us and work with us. For example, we wrote a policy with General Casualty last year that had some issues with past losses, but we worked with loss control and increased their deductible, and it ended up being a positive situation for everyone.
Retention
Dan Power: Other agents are out there trying to bag the elephant, get the huge account. They end up neglecting their smaller accounts. We go after the accounts nobody pays attention to – most of them under $30,000. We give them more attention than they’re used to, and that’s great for retention. They consider us “on retainer” as their insurance advisers, just like they would with a lawyer or doctor.
Tom Pupeter: We don’t play games with our customers. We tell them if they should budget for an increase or decrease in premiums. In the market we have now, I let them know six months in advance that they’ll probably see a decrease on their next renewal. They appreciate that, and it helps us head off the competition who may be more aggressive.
Greg Paulsen: Over time you get the service you pay for. We’ve had customers leave us for a cheaper, national company and then come back after they’ve had a big claim. Our full-time claims advocate and our in-house loss control person provide a level of service that definitely helps with retention. These services also show prospective clients what we can do for our customers. They might say, “Wow, my current agent doesn’t do this for me!”
Customer service
Dan Power: As an added benefit, we go out and do a free video inventory and personal insurance review for prospective high-value homeowners customers. We don’t try to sell them anything. We don’t twist their arms, we just show them how we can help. It’s worked; we’ve had an 80 percent success rate writing new business this way.
Tom Pupeter: People think about insurance as selling policies, but we look at our role as that of a trusted adviser for the families and businesses that count on us. We’re a small agency, only eight people. Our CSRs are on a first-name basis with just about everyone who calls us – and in some cases they’re a third-generation customer of our agency. They know they’ll be taken care of.
Mark Young: Our entire staff is committed to giving customers a level of service beyond what they’d expect. Even if you’re having a bad day, good customer service comes first.
Jim Elrod: We instill in our people that we’re a team, we don’t work individually. It’s hard to keep a family atmosphere with 28 employees, but that’s what we do. We look at how we would want to be treated as customers. How would we want someone to answer that question? We focus on others, and it’s paid off.
Featured agents
Jim Elrod
Operations Manager
Little and Smith Agency
Marietta, Ga.
Greg Paulsen
Vice President of
Commercial Lines
Marcotte Insurance Agency
Omaha, Neb.
Dan Power
Co-owner
Ferree and Power Insurance
Indianapolis, Ind.
Tom Pupeter
President
Thomas Insurance Group
Oshkosh, Wis.
Mark Young
President
CC Young Insurance Agency
Scranton, Penn.
For more information please contact Anne M. Smith.