Great Commercial Referral Source

[JRoot]

If you're selling commercial insurance, I'd recommend establishing a referral relationship with a payroll rep from a small company. There's a lot of small payroll shops out there to partner with and the one I use beats ADP and Paychex (the 2 biggest in CA) by at least 20% and has great personal service...so I feel comfortable referring my clients over to them when I review their workers comp.

These small payroll shops have a personal touch and treat their customers right. The business owners trusted the payroll reps referall (me) like they would if their CPA or attorney referred them. Once I show them I could beat what they currently had, it was a done deal.

Hopefully the referrals keep coming...

 

[Bhains Insurance Broker]

If you're selling commercial insurance, I'd recommend establishing a referral relationship with a payroll rep from a small company. There's a lot of small payroll shops out there to partner with and the one I use beats ADP and Paychex (the 2 biggest in CA) by at least 20% and has great personal service...so I feel comfortable referring my clients over to them when I review their workers comp.

These small payroll shops have a personal touch and treat their customers right. The business owners trusted the payroll reps referall (me) like they would if their CPA or attorney referred them. Once I show them I could beat what they currently had, it was a done deal.

Hopefully the referrals keep coming...

Yes, payroll people (such as ADP) want to refer business to good, honest people. Don't only sell on price. Remember, the nature of the beast is that you must be liked and know what you're talking about to help you sell. I'm sure you've read one of Zig Zigglers books

 

[Mr. Bill]

Are we talking about bookkeeping businesses?

 

[arnguy]

I think they are referring to strictly payroll preparation services that prepare payroll checks, payroll tax forms, and payroll ledgers for businesses rather than bookkeeping.

 

[Bhains Insurance Broker]

I think they are referring to strictly payroll preparation services that prepare payroll checks, payroll tax forms, and payroll ledgers for businesses rather than bookkeeping.

Taken from the ADP website

"ADP offers the widest range of HR, payroll, tax and benefits administration solutions from a single source"

 

[arnguy]

Taken from the ADP website

"ADP offers the widest range of HR, payroll, tax and benefits administration solutions from a single source"

Well. ADP is a giant in the field of payroll prparation so I am not surprised that they have extended their services to include some ancillary services. However, what is described by ADP does not sound like bookkeeping to me. I am sure the smaller and local payroll services do not offer much more than what I previously described, i.e., payroll check preparation, monthly, quarterly, and annual payroll tax forms (including W-2, W-4, 1099), payroll journal and ledger printouts. In other words, the services revolve around payrolls and payroll taxes. Bookkeeping involves day to day accounts receivable, accounts oayable and other accounting functions.

 

[Florida PC]

This seems like as good a place as any for my first post! (other than the introduction forums I guess)

I am the VP of a small payroll company in Florida (Florida Payroll and Insurance Solutions | Absolute Pay Trust). We opened an insurance division several years ago becuase we referred so much business out to insurance agents that it became obvious we were missing out on some serious revenue.

As someone who works in both the P & C and payroll fields, here are a few pieces of advice on forming a good relationship with a payroll provider.

1. Use a smaller payroll provider that is local. These companies value their relationship with you much more than a company like ADP. A small payroll company is very customer service oriented. If you can prove to them that you will show their customerse the same kind of pesonalized service that they do, they will be happy to send business your way.

2. Make it a two way street. There are just as many opportunities for you to send a payroll company business as there are for them to send you business. One main difference is that the payroll company will often pay you for referrals that become clients. Most small payroll companeis cannot receive commissions from you for insurance business because they are not licensed.

3. Take advantage of added services that payroll companies provide such as pay-as-you-go workers comp policies. My payroll company offers no money down, pay-as-you-go workers comp polices that allow a clients premiums to be collected right along with the payroll. Many other payroll companies offer the same service. Clients pay only for what they "used" in workers comp that week. This can be a tremendous selling tool for a P & C agent. In fact, this is the reason that insurance agents are still some of the biggest referral sources for my payroll company--even though they know that I am technically a competitor of theirs with the insurance side of my business. Obviously we have agreements in place that I will not poach any of their insurance business away when they refer a payroll client. It serves to illustrate the value of the pay-as-you-go service though. I pay the agents a referral fee of $200 and they get the competive advantage of offering pay-as-you-go workers comp to their policy holders. Truly a win win for everyone.

4. Form a relationship with an Employee Leasing company. If you don't know what that is, you can google it for more info. All you really need to know is that they will write workers comp policies that others will not (small roofers, USL & H comp policies, structural steel companies, etc...), but they bundle in HR and payroll related functions for a very affordable price (it's a little more complicated but that's the basic idea). What you really need to know is that they pay VERY well for referrals. I have some good contacts in the Employee Leasing industry that write in most states and are always willing to pay for new referrals if anyone is interested.

Hope this information was helpful! Looking forward to reading and posting more often.

 

[JRoot]

This seems like as good a place as any for my first post! (other than the introduction forums I guess)

I am the VP of a small payroll company in Florida (Florida Payroll and Insurance Solutions | Absolute Pay Trust). We opened an insurance division several years ago becuase we referred so much business out to insurance agents that it became obvious we were missing out on some serious revenue.

As someone who works in both the P & C and payroll fields, here are a few pieces of advice on forming a good relationship with a payroll provider.

1. Use a smaller payroll provider that is local. These companies value their relationship with you much more than a company like ADP. A small payroll company is very customer service oriented. If you can prove to them that you will show their customerse the same kind of pesonalized service that they do, they will be happy to send business your way.

2. Make it a two way street. There are just as many opportunities for you to send a payroll company business as there are for them to send you business. One main difference is that the payroll company will often pay you for referrals that become clients. Most small payroll companeis cannot receive commissions from you for insurance business because they are not licensed.

3. Take advantage of added services that payroll companies provide such as pay-as-you-go workers comp policies. My payroll company offers no money down, pay-as-you-go workers comp polices that allow a clients premiums to be collected right along with the payroll. Many other payroll companies offer the same service. Clients pay only for what they "used" in workers comp that week. This can be a tremendous selling tool for a P & C agent. In fact, this is the reason that insurance agents are still some of the biggest referral sources for my payroll company--even though they know that I am technically a competitor of theirs with the insurance side of my business. Obviously we have agreements in place that I will not poach any of their insurance business away when they refer a payroll client. It serves to illustrate the value of the pay-as-you-go service though. I pay the agents a referral fee of $200 and they get the competive advantage of offering pay-as-you-go workers comp to their policy holders. Truly a win win for everyone.

4. Form a relationship with an Employee Leasing company. If you don't know what that is, you can google it for more info. All you really need to know is that they will write workers comp policies that others will not (small roofers, USL & H comp policies, structural steel companies, etc...), but they bundle in HR and payroll related functions for a very affordable price (it's a little more complicated but that's the basic idea). What you really need to know is that they pay VERY well for referrals. I have some good contacts in the Employee Leasing industry that write in most states and are always willing to pay for new referrals if anyone is interested.

Hope this information was helpful! Looking forward to reading and posting more often.

Great insight. Thanks.

As far as offering workers comp policies that are "pay as you go"...that is by far the most preferred way of paying premiums, unfortunately the companies that offer it, don't always offer the best rate. So another value add when I refer clients to my payroll rep is they give monthly "workers comp reports" at no extra charge so they can budget accordingly if their payroll fluctuates a lot.

 

[Florida PC]

JRoot--just curious, what state you are in? Here in Florida most of the underwriters that I work with are willing to do a pay-as-you-go policy, so there is no issue with getting the best price for my cleints.