Handling the Work Load of Small Commercial Business

[Placementkid]

Hello everyone, I currently handle the majority of our small business within our agency. We have about 8-10 new producers and we are associated with a large bank.

Basically the bank is sending us leads on a daily basis and the new producers are handling these leads. Since they are so new, they obviously are not familiar with filling out acord forms, so I've been tasked with creating an elementary form that they can fill out to get me the basic information needed to find a market.

While that is working great, the amount of submissions being sent my way are becoming a bit overwhelming for just myself.

My question is, for the medium-large agencies out there who have multiple producers submitting business daily, what is your process like to handle this? Do you have a queue setup to have them submit business to, do they just submit directly, basically how do you handle this process?

Any software out there to help handle this workload and sort it by need by date, or sorted by producer?

Any input/advice is certainly appreciated as this is basically all new to me and we are a young agency finding our way in this business.

 

[insurance1822]

Hello - My post is going to be off topic & I can't PM you because you don't have enough posts yet. I've heard about these 'bank' agencies & I would like to know more about them. Is this a small 1 location bank? Is the bank looking to make profit off the operation OR just provide services to their customers. Are you an employee of the bank? Who's idea was it to get into this? aka the bank president...or is this a larger conglomerate of banks & this came from upper management etc. Can you describe the affiliation w/ the bank?

 

[Placementkid]

Our agency has existed for a long time now, since 1930. It was always a small local agency, as was the bank. Now, they have both grown in good size and we have about 10 locations, which are shared by the bank and agency.

I'm not sure I have all the information to give you as I'm fairly new here and my position has been vacant for some time. It really took me coming in and implementing my own process to my role and to work with the new producers.

I'm an employee of the agency, but we are ultimately owned by the bank and are held to the same standards that they are.

I should clarify, that this is a work in progress, since technically, this is a taking over of the new guard and the old one left before they could train the new ones.

 

[Derrick]

Well, I hate to sound like "that" guy but I think focusing on higher premium accounts should be your number one priority. This is the type of business that sticks on the books, and are less prone to price increases, especially if you take time and nurture the relationship.

But systems take time to develop and there's no straightforward answer. Do you guys have agency management software for existing policyholders? If I could, at my place of business, I'd scrap the software we have (hawksoft) and do ALL my client and lead management through Salesforce. As of right now, I do just leads on the $25/mo plan.

With just a few employees, and for just lead management, Salesforce should be something you should look into. It allows multiple users and you can track the process of each sale and set up certain filters to sort what leads are coming from where.

 

[Placementkid]

We are trying to move the small business over to the house, basically one person who is just responsible for quoting small business all day.

I typically handle accounts from 10k-25k in premium, then the next guy picks it up from there.

We use AMS360 and we have developed our own pipeline software, but it does not coincide with AMS (go figure)

Basically, I need a way to setup my Account Executive's to submit business to me in a more formal way to quote it and get them back what they need to sell it.

As of right now, they just drop files on my desk and I quote what I can. It's not really efficient.

 

[Bobby]

Why not teach them to fill out accords and submit to the carriers?

 

[Placementkid]

Why not teach them to fill out accords and submit to the carriers?

Baby steps. I was brought into this business taught to use an elementary form and it allowed me the opportunity to learn what information was needed and why, instead of how to fill out an acord form.

That allowed me the opportunity to understand why I was asking the information and then I believe it made understanding the acord form that much easier.

I've taken remarkets as an opportunity for them to review a completed acord for accuracy and then again, filling one out will be easier.

 

[FL P&C Broker]

Follow question from 1822's question.

How much, if any, extra regulation is there on bank owned agencies? I have heard there was extra operational obstacles.

 

[Gulfman]

Follow question from 1822's question.

How much, if any, extra regulation is there on bank owned agencies? I have heard there was extra operational obstacles.

I would hope.

BANK: we have a liability policy you should buy.
CUSTOMER: im happy with what i got.
BANK: we're calling your loan in!
CUSTOMER: where do i sign?

:(

 

[FL P&C Broker]

I would hope. BANK: we have a liability policy you should buy. CUSTOMER: im happy with what i got. BANK: we're calling your loan in! CUSTOMER: where do i sign? :(

I was more referring to the accounting and information/data sharing regulations.