How To Get New Agents For My Agency

[OCinsurance]

Who covers the e and o? Will your e and o extend to them?

 

[KJ in Miami]

I met a lady who has a broker relationship with Mass Mutual. She recruited a CPA to work with her, paid his e&o, but was upset when he went back to his CPA work. She said that she was told by her contact at a medical office that he was weird but still proceeded with the guy. We talked about partnering up regarding Medicare, but some how got the impression that I was going to write the business under her Agency code. She has almost a 0 client list for Medicare plans... I said no way! Stop calling her, she called me after about two weeks. Have yet to call her back - not sure if I want to deal with her.

Who covers the e and o? Will your e and o extend to them?

 

[Guest]

I met a lady who has a broker relationship with Mass Mutual. She recruited a CPA to work with her, paid his e&o, but was upset when he went back to his CPA work. She said that she was told by her contact at a medical office that he was weird but still proceeded with the guy. We talked about partnering up regarding Medicare, but some how got the impression that I was going to write the business under her Agency code. She has almost a 0 client list for Medicare plans... I said no way! Stop calling her, she called me after about two weeks. Have yet to call her back - not sure if I want to deal with her.

THX for commenting on an old thread, and commenting about L&H in a P&C forum....DOUBLE NEGATIVE

 

[KJ in Miami]

Just a slow weekend and going to the 1 PM service.

THX for commenting on an old thread, and commenting about L&H in a P&C forum....DOUBLE NEGATIVE

 

[CaNewAgent]

Nice post Dan. This is how agency expansion was explained to me.

Jack - by focus I simply mean that normally you bring in producers to grow an area of a business. Look at the structure of other independents. They have a few personal lines reps, that focus on personal lines. They will have a few commercial line account managers, to deal with commercial. They will have a life/health account manager for that part of the business.

Everyone knows what they do, what they are responsible for. Everyone focuses on their job. Do they cross-sell? Absolutely, but they have a primary focus.

The reason I made this comment is VolAgent asked you what you focus on and you said you were a full service brokerage. I've been there. To grow, you need to focus on a niche, maybe multiple niches. Still be a full service brokerage, but with a focus and direction. After that, a new area to focus on means bringing on a producer who focuses on that area.

Also, as you focus the agency, the benefits to a producer can become much clearer.

Let me give an example. An agency might want to grow their auto book. They want someone to go work with car dealers to get referrals for business. Now, this is a unique type of business, but can be lucrative if you know how to do it and don't mind working nights/weekends a bit. Now, I've got a little bit of a focus, now I need tools. Let's see, selling at used car dealers requires non-standard carriers, instant SR-22's, etc. This is an extremely easy market to get direct appointments with, so I line those up, have someone start shaking hands with the owners of the dealerships, put a program in place for them and work it constantly. He/She focuses on this. As the agency owner, I might even supply a donut budget to make this happen. I don't have a producer just willy-nilly doing anything, I have a producer that owns a market, focuses on success in that market, cross-sells anything he can, but he knows what to do.

By the way, if you ever go this route, understand that car dealers could care less what your rates are, they just need the paperwork from you to get their loans funded and cars delivered. The client may care about the rate, but they rarely shop at this point, so you just need some carriers that are 'reasonable' and that you don't have to worry to much about loss ratios, lapse ratios, etc.

When you understand my point about focus, you will do well and begin to grow again.

Dan