Clients Sister Knows Best

[djs]

I think its safe to say the first comment was in jest... Come on, have some fun, it's the holidays!!!!

Besides, you tend to get a better raise by lowering deductibles...

Dan

 

[warnerins]

Ahhh.... the old raise liability limits, lower deductibles and do a better job for your clients ploy.

Has the world gone mad?

Dan will email you later tonight.... Ran this baby by myself yesterday.

Has the world gone mad?

 

[saieddie]

"Go ahead and shoe horn your clients "

and you're the same person who posted...

"When I need a raise, I just increase everyones limits on my own"

That's what you consider great service? increase their costs until they complain?

I guess that's one way to do it. Good luck when "due dilligence" hit's the P&C business. That'll be a fun business model to explain in court.

Due dilligence is for wussies.

 

[Ron Van D]

How to get people to raise their liability limits....

First, realize that most won't. Most want to balance premium with coverage. Having 100/300 is still pretty decent and having 250/500 doesn't prevent blowing through the limits.

Second, you'll never push a client into higher limits, but you can offer the option. You quote it with the normal limits, so offer a quote with 100/300 and 250/500. If they ask about the 250/500 then the door is open to....

Third, have a list of recent jury awards available. You can get these through juryverdicts.com, but there is a subscription fee. Otherwise, collect them through news sources. When they ask about higher limits, start out by talking about how fast something can go wrong when you are driving, a blink of an eye... Have you ever been driving and looked away for just a second and almost hit someone??? Let me show you what happened in some cases where they actually hit someone... in just that brief second... Review a couple of the cases... Then mention 'I never want one of my clients to have to pay these bills out of their pocket'. Proceed to write the app.

Of course, start with increasing their property damage limits. I quoted against another carrier where the prospect had 100/300 but only 10K in property damage.... Talk about an imbalance!!!!

Personal stories, which you collect over time, work very well.

Selling higher limits isn't always easy. People don't want to be insurance rich and financially poor. Unless they have a young driver, having the higher limits rarely costs them that much though, which is why I quote them initially, then try to sell them.

Dan

87.6% of my clients have 250/500. I do this by telling them what happens when they don't have it. I explain it like this:

Bob, I'm going to recommend that you raise your deductibles on comp and collision to $500. Let me explain why. If you have an at fault accident tomorrow and we just raised your deductible by $250 you're going to be mad at me fro having you do that, but it won't devastate you having to pay the extra 250 will it? No. It'll make you mad; it'll maybe throw your budget outta whack for a month, but it won't devastate you. Now on the other hand, if you are in a serious accident and you do $200,000 worth of injuries to somebody and you only have 100/300 there gonna come after you for the balance. They'll get a judgement and then, if its not satisfied in ten years, they'll renew that judgement for another ten years. Now that'll devastate you. The $250 is an inconvenience, the 100 grand is serious. That's what you need to insure against; the devastation, not the inconvenience. Do you agree?


It's also easier to add on an umbrella once you have them at 250/500.

 

[bobson]

The $250 is an inconvenience, the 100 grand is serious. That's what you need to insure against; the devastation, not the inconvenience. Do you agree?

Great line. Mind if I borrow it?

 

[1manshow]

1 year owning the agency, your focus needs to be to earn/build credibility in your new clients minds. Those of us with years and years in the business don't have to deal with that issue in nearly the same context as you are. My opinion is that some great credibility builders that are still working for us are:

Testimonials- we solicit a testimonial from every new client at the six month point of our relationship. We have taken those testimonials and condensed/updated them into a presentable, five or six page document that we can include with mailings to prospective clients. We also use them from time to time in our advertising and newsletter. which brings me to my second point

Newsletters- In the beginning, I wrote many of the articles and did the research for my client newsletter. I now use only one insurance topic each newsletter and mostly include other topics of interest. Being "an author" in my clients eyes has made me an insurance expert to most of them and they value and trust my opinions well enough to refer most of their friends and family to me personally. Am I an insurance expert ? How do you convey that professionally to your clients if you have not built credibility ? My opinion...these two ideas have worked well for me and could serve you well also.


Good luck

 

[Ron Van D]

Great line. Mind if I borrow it?

Its all yours!

Residual checks can be frowarded to me at....... J/K

 

[RayGroupInsurance]

1 year owning the agency, your focus needs to be to earn/build credibility in your new clients minds. Those of us with years and years in the business don't have to deal with that issue in nearly the same context as you are. My opinion is that some great credibility builders that are still working for us are:

Testimonials- we solicit a testimonial from every new client at the six month point of our relationship. We have taken those testimonials and condensed/updated them into a presentable, five or six page document that we can include with mailings to prospective clients. We also use them from time to time in our advertising and newsletter. which brings me to my second point

Newsletters- In the beginning, I wrote many of the articles and did the research for my client newsletter. I now use only one insurance topic each newsletter and mostly include other topics of interest. Being "an author" in my clients eyes has made me an insurance expert to most of them and they value and trust my opinions well enough to refer most of their friends and family to me personally. Am I an insurance expert ? How do you convey that professionally to your clients if you have not built credibility ? My opinion...these two ideas have worked well for me and could serve you well also.


Good luck

Thank you that's helpful. I have started writing somewhat regularly on my blog but a newsletter is probably better because you know it's getting in their hands. Do you use a specific company for your newsletter or do you just print and mail your own?

 

[1manshow]

I started with a lot of insurance advice, money saving ideas, etc and have graduated to a current events, general info type newsletter with only one or two insurance related articles each issue. I have used foresight publishing and pagesmag.com to stay away from any copyright infringements. My perisistency has gone from 92%avg to over 95% since beginning the newsletter and using testimonials regularly. I also hire out the printing and mailing, I simply proof the newsletter, add my content and 2cents and email it to the printer. I contemplated email newsletters until I saw the statistics on how many of those get read. Mine are actually getting passed on to friends when clients are finished with them. Only downside is that I am responsible for the deaths of a few trees in the process.

Best of luck in your efforts