Charging for Cert's

[AZDave]

Question for the commercial producers out there; Is it common practice for the Agency to charge the insured for Certificates? Or certain Certificates?

I insure many contractors and have never gone there....but lately have been monitoring CSR's time on producing some of these crazy cert requirements. Many take up to an hour from start to finish with the endorsement's and wording burning up the bulk of the time. Not sure if it is too late to start charging, or start on new accounts, or accounts with premium less than $5000....

any thoughts appreciated..

 

[Jaycsmith]

At nationwide the agent I worked for charged $25 for basic cert and $100 for the ones that took the service reps hours to process.

 

[djs]

Of course, nickel and diming your clients is a way to get them to walk out the door. But, this isn't always a bad thing if they are costing you money in time.

I know a lot of agents that allow a certain number of certs with the policy and then charge above that. Somewhat makes sense to me to do it this way. It keeps the simple customers happy, but the ones that use a lot of time pay for the time.

I've also seen a flat fee charged for unlimited certs. This works well for clients like contractors who can go crazy with needing certs. I guess a modification of this would be a 'cert bundle', where they prepay for a number of certs at a discounted rate than doing them individually. But since it is prepaid, it doesn't feel like you are nickel and diming them as much, or at least as often.

Dan

 

[AZDave]

Thanks for the input. Last thing I want to do is give someone a reason to shop. But these contractors have to understand the time needed to complete, again and again. I like the charging for after so many...
Dave

 

[Bertolinoins]

I try to get a broker fee added to the next renewal. Many are business people that understand doing 100 certs a year on a smaller account is unprofitable. If they don't, let another broker lose money on them.

 

[AZDave]

Wish I could. In AZ, only able to fee surplus lines.

 

[Sales71]

Wish I could. In AZ, only able to fee surplus lines.

You can try to ask them to pay for the certificate chances are they will not pay. If it not worth your time or staff just send them to another agent. I personally hate certificate and try to use progressive as much as I can for commercial since they do the certificate on commercial auto for you.