Office in a Car Dealership

[BighouseRay]

Are you gonna just write autos, I'm coming in late so somebody pointed out by now that your time spent trying to get the business that has very low retention is gonna take you away from getting high retention business, homes and businesses on the p&c side, and life and health.

Even if you have a producer sit at the dealer all day and quote/write policy who do you have to service those policies, so now you have to add even more staff.

I'd tell them I'll stay where I'm at you send me the business anyway I can do as many as I can and I send you lunch once a week if I close some. 50% is out. You both benefit cause if the customer don't get that binder the car don't cross the curb, so why should you pay for getting them what they gotta get anyway.

If more than one salesperson has a deal at the same time then guess what, there gonna call the next company anyway. Plus nothing trumps having your own office can you really make a through presentation to somebody in the corner of a busy dealership.

 

[khang.mis]

Nonstandard? Give him half of the broker fee, I think that's plenty fair considering you won't have to pay rent.

 

[thenxtgrt1]

My office will be located in a mortgage company. Although not a car dealership, the environment is somewhat similar. Having office located in a center of influence, and satisfying an industry requirement (i.e. evidence of insurance with mortgage lender). Interesting thread.

 

[JCK818]

A year has passed. Things are great. Still at the dealership. WE close on average 35 policies a month there, but we get to market them and lot of cross selling opportunities.

 

[ins4u2]

Glad to hear it! Thanks for the update

 

[NCAgent]

A year has passed. Things are great. Still at the dealership. WE close on average 35 policies a month there, but we get to market them and lot of cross selling opportunities.

I have a couple of questions out of curiosity:

1) What carriers do you typically use?
2) What is your cross-selling rate?
3)Standard or non-standard would you say? It can be a 50/50 as well.
4) Do you charge any fees for any of these policies?
5) What percentage of the written policies do you keep over 6 months? How many for the year? I would imagine that the turnover on the policies would be higher, but I have no numbers to keep that up.

 

[Bertolinoins]

My office will be located in a mortgage company. Although not a car dealership, the environment is somewhat similar. Having office located in a center of influence, and satisfying an industry requirement (i.e. evidence of insurance with mortgage lender). Interesting thread.

This is a much better way to go IMO. People who buy their insurance at the car dealership are not likely to be upper tier standard market accounts. Retention is much higher when you lead with homeowners.

 

[djs]

3)Standard or non-standard would you say? It can be a 50/50 as well.

I can't speak for JCK818, but given he is in CA, this question doesn't have the same meaning as it does for most states. Most places, no prior coverage will get you non-standard, here, it isn't even a thought with most carriers.

Dan

 

[NCAgent]

I can't speak for JCK818, but given he is in CA, this question doesn't have the same meaning as it does for most states. Most places, no prior coverage will get you non-standard, here, it isn't even a thought with most carriers.

Dan

Fair enough. I'm just curious to see if there is a good profit in doing it vs the headache involved. I know some people with car dealerships and they'll want some money, so I'm debating on the cost vs benefit of it.

 

[djs]

I used to have an office between 2 used car dealers. They would send everyone over to get insurance.

I got a lot of business out of it. Also got a lot of claims out of it. Loss ratios were horrific actually. Lapses were frequent. What seems like a 100 years later though, several clients are still with me so its not all doom and gloom.

To me, if you have the carriers that have the appetite for this type of thing, its a volume business that is pretty easy. Have a CSR to drive the phone to keep the reinstatements going and bill paying on track and you can probably do well.

Dan