Gmac, Progressive, Victoria, Infinity

[oicu812nbama]

i have a bunch of friends that are captive with allstate, cotton states and a regional carrier. don't know any ia's. that's why i ask so many questions. lol. i need to take one out to lunch that isn't in my area (doesn't see me as a threat).

also, i'm using a mga's rater. guess i need to get one if i'm gonna do the nonstandard stuff...

 

[rudy323]

OICU- This is a common thing I have noticed, I have stopped by at different agencies to just talk about business and marketing and alot of them are VERY stand offish as if I am asking to see their list of clients and phone numbers

These forums are a good way to counter act this response, but talking about business and what works makes both parties better.

In the last industry I was involved, people(mostly the young) very openly talked about strategies and helped each other and everyone who participated improved

 

[Guest]

I'm going to go with: Get them all if you can.

Reason being I'm in a similar situation as you. I started with 1 and built up to 4 now. When you only have one company you have to find what their niche is and cater your marketing efforts around the business they are competitive in. I still write like 95% of my business to 2 companies but the other 2 are there if i need them and they have not said anything to me about not sending them production.

 

[joshb]

We have all 4. Over the last 3 years or so we have placed 3 policies with GMAC, quite abit with Progressive, I forgot we even represent Victoria (they go by Titan in Florida right now), and we just started writing Infinity again since they started writing more of the preferred market. None of them have even mentioned we are writing enough business, and none of them have threatened to cancel. If you can, get them all, they each have their own niches. You do need to work the niches though to place the policies. For example if someone has a loan through GMAC they get a discount. If you don't ask the right questions another agent will, and will offer a better price than you. Thats just one example, but you get the point. I think Progressive offers a discount now for Education level, so ask those questions too. Basically just learn the different discounts, and niches that each company has and you'll do good with each carrier.

 

[Guest]

We have all 4. Over the last 3 years or so we have placed 3 policies with GMAC, quite abit with Progressive, I forgot we even represent Victoria (they go by Titan in Florida right now), and we just started writing Infinity again since they started writing more of the preferred market. None of them have even mentioned we are writing enough business, and none of them have threatened to cancel. If you can, get them all, they each have their own niches. You do need to work the niches though to place the policies. For example if someone has a loan through GMAC they get a discount. If you don't ask the right questions another agent will, and will offer a better price than you. Thats just one example, but you get the point. I think Progressive offers a discount now for Education level, so ask those questions too. Basically just learn the different discounts, and niches that each company has and you'll do good with each carrier.

Sounds like you write a crapload of business!

 

[joshb]

Sounds like you write a crapload of business!

Not sure if your being sarcastic or not, but we write a good amount. Last year we wrote a little over 3,000 policies. Just not with any of these 4 companies. we write preferred auto mostly. we are not the biggest agency by any means, but we hold our own in our area.

 

[Scottyj]

GMAC is great... but beware, they just recently started charging for MVR and we were unaware... Just got a bill for $144 on the stuff we did not write. They charge $10 per MVR when I could have done it through our MVR report site for 3 bucks a pop !

 

[BlockO]

seriously? $10 per MVR? wow! must be a Utah thing.

I have GMAC in Ohio and they've never charged me a dime to run MVR's. The only carrier I have that charges for MVR's is Progressive and it's only $2.

 

[JCK818]

Does anyone in Cali use GMAC? I haven't sold anything with them for about 2 years. They just are not competitive.

 

[Scottyj]

Unfortunately I dont write much gmac in utah... But I do in cali... Those charges were under our cali code as we are a cali agency