Renters Insurance

[stuartmoore10]

Hello everyone,

I am still very new to the insurance game, about 3 months in. I have been looking around the the forum and saw the door hanger idea. I think it is a great marketing tool.

I am trying to find a niche around town and was thinking about possibly trying to market the door hangers to townhomes and upscale apartments. I know some of these places are now requiring renters insurance and they refer these people to E-Renters or Renters Insurance Select.

I am in the process of gathering all the different complexes around town and plan to start calling them in the next few days. Any thoughts on getting my foot in the door?

I am with an independent agency and we can easily beat all of those rates. Obviously renters policies are not very expensive, so I know I would have to cross sell them on car insurance.

What does everyone think of this idea? Any thoughts on improvement are welcome.

Feel free to email your thoughts if you don't want to post here.

Stuart Moore
[email protected]

 

[djs]

Well, lets begin by saying it is IMPOSSIBLE to make money selling renters insurance. Anything you do is effectively flushing money down the toilet.

Once you understand that, there are reasons to sell it. Mostly, if you have to have policy production, it works. If you are looking to grow a book of business, it works. If you want to grow revenue? It doesn't work.

I sell a lot of renters, hence I can say you can't make money with it with some authority. I use it to help rates on auto policies, plus it does provide some cross sell opportunities.

If you are looking for volume, the doorhangers won't work. This is after they moved in, last thing they want to do is change carriers when the premium is so low. Work the front office, give them a referral fee. They will then send you the business (not everywhere, but enough).

Dan

 

[souldeux]

If you don't mind going down into Atlanta, there are a TON of condos in the Atlantic Station area that are getting ready to go up for auction. If you got down there before they went on that market, you could associate your name with them from the get-go. I think the ones that don't get sold are going to go on the rental market -- this is third-hand knowledge, however.

There are a ton of apartments in the Athens area that don't make even the slightest mention of renter's insurance when you move in. Between my friends and myself we lived in just about all of them, and none of us ever even thought about renter's insurance. This isn't exactly local, and the turnover would be high, but it's a widely untapped market.

The best advice I can think of is this: when you're calling around to the folks whose information you're gathering, don't talk to them in terms of what you want -- talk to them in terms of what you can give to them. "I'm a local P&C agent and I want to market my services to your renters" doesn't sound nearly as attractive as letting them know that they can offer a total package to their tenants, improving their overall renting experience by partnering with a trustworthy P&C agent so that their renters don't have to go to some sketchy guy in an alley. Happy tenants are long-term tenants!

Lastly, do your homework before you start hanging doorhangers. I used to sell alarm systems door-to-door and was once sent to a trailer park. A trailer park. There's nothing wrong with people in a trailer park, but who the hell puts an alarm system on a trailer? Our time would have been MUCH better spent in more affluent areas -- and so would yours.

 

[stuartmoore10]

Thanks Dan. I would mainly be doing it to get to their auto policies, and hopefully if they moved to a home one day, getting to that as well.

I am really looking at trying to grow my book of business. I went to one place today and gave them a stack of business cards.

Just didnt know if this was worth pursuing at all.
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Thanks Nick,

I want to try and stay out of the college towns because the kids, while they are in school are still covered under their parents policy, plus I dont want to have to deal with those kids.

I have been one of them and I would not want to deal with myself at that age either.

I do like the idea of Atlantic Station. Just have to figure out how I can get in there before some bigshot from Atlanta does.

 

[djs]

Stack of business cards won't work. You need a renters flyer, with pricing, for the tenants.

Look at one of the current flyers they have, make something similar (doesn't have to be as slick, just something that looks professional), use that for people to order a 'package' from you.

Simplicity is key.

Dan