Staffing Requirements - Commercial Package

[bcollins216]

Good Morning, All!

I would appreciate the group's feedback regarding client manager/CSR/underwriter staffing needs, both current and future, for a small MGA/Program Manager that writes commercial package for a niche market.

Profile:
3,634 in force commercial package policies
8%-5% annual growth of in force policies
$33MM in annual premium
$9.8BB in TIV
Fronting carriers have essentially given the MGA/Program Manager the pen.
32% have workers comp
13% have owned auto to the package

Currently the duties that a client manager/CSR/underwriter would perform are farmed out and packaged with the broker services. A dedicated staff of four perform the work but service times and quality occasionally lag. My guess is it is due to poor leadership (essentially none) as all four are neck deep in day-to-day processing.

The MGA/Program Manager is seeking to bring this back in house from the broker. I am charged with project management of this. Other than the logical need for a manager to be taken out of the day-to-day to actually lead the team, how can I advise them on their current staffing needs and future staffing needs in light of their decently consistent growth of in force policies?

My hunch is four dedicated staff with a fifth being a manager for leading, training, and vision casting. Should they add a staff member for every 750 policies written going forward? More? Less?

Thanks in advance for your input! If you need more information, feel free to ask.

 

[djs]

With commercial, there is no good rule of thumb on how many CSR's you'll need. Why? The type of account dictates the workload, not the policy count. A contractor policy will have much more work than say a retail store or a beauty salon. Much, much more.

Nobody here can even come close to answering this question for you, except to say that 3634 commercial policies with 4 people is asking for it to become 2500 commercial policies, or less.

Dan