Category Archives: agent

10.28.18
by

Genuine vs. the Algorithm

Marketing should supplement and promote genuine value not disguise the lack of.

Right now it seems that way, but somewhere in my reading and listening, I again heard what I already have known for a while now; You do not need to adapt to AI, and similar data ideas, but the agents/brokers/companies that do will survive and thrive and those that don’t, won’t.

So combine that with the following things stuck in my head from various reading and listening;

  • Sending out a birthday card is awesome and there are services that do this
  • Who is killing it on YouTube?
  • You must contact your customers 24-36 times

On Birthdays; Mrs. B is the mother of a childhood friend of my wife.  Each year a birthday card shows up for our children and I’m not even sure that she has met our children.  Handwritten.  Maybe she uses an electronic calendar, maybe she doesn’t, but it is real, handwritten ink and genuine.

Has Facebook ruined the birthday greeting?  I mean they remind you about the birthday and they even tell you what to say to the person.  I suppose technically the person “said” happy birthday to you.  Maybe you were even overwhelmed by the “love and the messages…..” But how many of those people took the 5-30 second to personalize it?  You can say the same thing about changing jobs or posting an update on Linkedin.  And yes, if automation is becoming more and more a part of what we do, those that use it better will stand out.  So, sure, a physical birthday card from your insurance agent showing up at your home is nice, sort of.  If you did it merely to keep in touch as part of a formula, is it?

  • Is it really just a self-serving act following a desperate formula to combat an already “noisy” world?
  • Is this just one touch of a formula?

Sure, you are combining data with a pseudo genuine act.  But, you are using what is considered an important, almost sacred, milestone and demeaning it into a marketing activity.

Killing it on YouTube

Cool.  Excited for you.  Especially if it is a goal you set for yourself and now you are accomplishing it.  On the other hand, what aren’t you doing?  Certainly, all that time recording, editing, posting and sharing takes away from other activities.  But, hey you are feeding an algorithm, good for you.

So, I’m confused.  You are recording a video to bring value to others?  Cool, in theory, your video will get to more people.  So the next question, and you need to choose one;  The person that calls you because they watched a video or the person who called you because an existing customer told you about them.  Choose one.

I have no doubt, just like this post, there is value in being found online.  But are you doing the right mix of activities to be found and activities to be valuable?  Be honest, the information you are writing or recording, likely already exists.  Sure, there are new ideas, but not when it comes to talking about the basics of auto and home insurance.  So, you want them in your voice, fine.  But what if you did something new?  What if you were really honest, I mean honest enough it likely annoys some of your partner companies?

Where is the person “killing it” in flood insurance?

Where is the agent who has an amazing internship program?

Is there an agent “killing it” with AMS360(or whatever management system you use)?

Need more ideas, consider these places to be of value immediately that will have positive results but may not simply feed an algorithm;

  • What is your plan for flood insurance?   HUGE changes have begun and will continue.
  • IOT, aka The Internet of Things. Have you tested any devices in your home?  How can they help your people?
  • Telematics; an app vs. a plug in?  Thoughts?  Are your encouraging use of this?
  • What have you done to help your carriers today?  Hint, they don’t need, and many don’t even seem to want, another policyholder?
  • Using PayPal in your agency?  Have you seen them on a carrier yet?  I’ve only seen one.  Why?

 

10.20.18
by

Paragraph rants, what if

Attempted to use some voice to text stuff and it produced some really odd paragraphs.  Reinterpreting them a bit below;

  1. Is your marketing plan simply to produce enough content aka noise, so that one or more algorithms will help people “find” you?  I am not sure that, as a strategy, this is much more than hedging your fear of not knowing where the next deal is coming from.  Hope is not a strategy, nor is relying on things you do not have control of, like algorithms.
  2. The family was on a walk on a nice local path.  On occasion, you would find benches.  In this case, we were a half a mile or so into the walk and there it was, the same bench but covered in advertising.  Cool, you sponsored a bench.  I like it.  But do I need to see your phone number in the middle of the woods?  Do you like that you are interrupting people during leisure time?  How many people walk with a pen and paper?  Oh wait, maybe they’ll take a photo. Exactly, now I might have found a customer who was strolling on a walking path.  Might be time to figure our who your customer actually is.  Then, decide if you actually want the person who knows nothing more than that they saw(were interrupted by, your advertising.
  3. Measure yourself against whoever you want.  But, falling into the trap of thinking your NPS or JD power score, matched against your industry, matters, think again.  If you have a call center, who has THE BEST call center.  Period.  Maybe you need to be more like Zappos.  Saying you are the best call center in an industry not known for service is not a great idea.
  4. Get back to helping people buy insurance.  Sure, Jim Rohn, Harvey McKay, Tom Hopkins, etc. all had very lucrative sales training, motivational, type careers. You might as well.  But, on the other hand, while you are producing marketing videos and blogs the industry is suffering, Your brain power and time are diluted away from the problems that need solving.
  5. Empower the people!!  Had a couple of really nice exchanges with call center people lately. But, they inevitably fell flat.  Why?  Because these wonderfully empathetic people were not empowered to do anything.  They simply had to perform their task, their step in the assembly line.  Such a shame.
10.18.18
by

Rate increases; the most debilitating piece of the personal insurance puzzle

Incomplete draft from March 15, 2015.  I could write this post, with very little variation, this week as well. That is a massive failure.  Adding any more to it would be a waste of time.

 

The setting; a longtime customer is hit with double-digit rate increases two years in a row.  First year can be absorbed but by the second they have had enough.  The end result; YOU keep the customer.  That is the goal right?  Find a group of people who trust you and keep their business with you as long as possible.  What happens?  His $5500 premium drops to $4200.  Yes, scary.  In that he decides to save some money and drops an umbrella.  We also move a child onto their own.  So where is the fail?

Well, he now is not a fan of the former company because he feels mistreated.   The former company loses him and also loses his sons household.  They lost the other son two years ago.  So now you are down three households.  Call it six policies but it is really nine.  Fortunately, you only cost me one household I managed to keep the other two.

But Billy, you lowered the premium they are paying didn’t you lose money?  You can make a case I did in the short term but did I really  I didn’t have to go find a new customer which is good.  I stood tall on the promise of taking care of the people who trust me which is good as well. With some technology that is not quite here yet the perceived loss will be even less.  But where does it start?

Thought 1; It starts with complete actuarial assessments.  Someone in their big home office made some mistakes.  Like the rest of the industry, they think most customers are dumb and lazy and treat them as such.  They are most certainly not and buying patterns have changed.  They think that customer needs them because their product is good.  It’s not, you are very close to being a commodity.  Most things you market are never used by a customer anyhow.  Remember, if they use that new add-on they don’t need they’ll likely be penalized. Maybe it is because they are so focused on the short-term and operate in a “silo”   I think this may be it.  See the underwriters and actuaries apparently are not in communication with the marketers.  They also are likely not likely listening to the actual people bringing them the business.  

10.11.18
by

Dynamic underwriting exists…and somehow it is bad for customers

I’ve had my own run of claims as well as some others going on lately.  Fortunately, an occurrence that could have been claimed, sort of,  and a basic “How to handle a claim post”

Both are still accurate and both are somewhere between far from the truth and not enough.  I’ve long thought insurance functions as much like a credit card or bank loan than what people expect from insurance.  But, maybe I’m also abusing or misusing the word dynamic a bit.

Is your insurance re-underwritten year to year?  Sort of but in my experience, not completely.  See it is quickly reviewed and assessed for negative things like claims.  Sure, you may not see a surcharge for that accident but look closer.  See, you have a tier assigned to you and if that changes you’ll also likely see your rate go up.  Hence, dynamic underwriting….but not really.

But I was married this year or completed college this year or bought a house this year.  Don’t those things help?  Sure, sort of.  But, not completely in the live environment.  See, adding a second car and a spouse will find you multi-car savings but doesn’t typically adjust for your spouse or partners credit score or college degree that you don’t have.

An agent needs to know this and also needs to know the how and when to adjust.  But, as with all things, there is a cost associated with this.  The company does not bear the burden of keeping a customer.  In fact, many of their actions make you wonder if they actually want to keep the customer.

So, is it dynamic underwriting or situational dynamic or something else?  So it is much more situational dynamic.  In other words, we’ll be dynamic when it is convenient for us.  Yup.  That is why when David asks about filing a claim I have to have a drawn-out explanation that ends with, I really have no idea if it is a good idea or not. You really just have some sort of “loan” that sometimes functions like insurance, other times functions as a credit card with 6 months interest-free and no payments that you better read the fine print on.

Until an insurance company wants customers from top to bottom in the organization, this is unlikely to change.

10.02.18
by

Marketing pieces are valid….just not yours

This was the basis for two postcards I had done in 2012.  I liked them, still do. I like most things that hold up over time and the things on here do.

Then the next blurb I wrote was called “What does your agent have” this is a post I can probably write weekly if not every other week.  The same format of a solicitation keeps coming.

In my opinion, and there is a bit of data to support this, mailing campaigns still work.  Period.  We have done several this year and they have all produced several results.  Why?

  • There is a reason for mailing and it is not purely an immediate ROI that only equates to sales
  • The message in the piece is accurate and has some amount of useful information in it

The first point; If your mailing or postcard is purely to generate sales for your company, you have already lost.  You should probably go plant a tree to at least lessen the negative impact you have on the universe.  You have already wasted the time of the postal people and whoever did the mailing.  Purely trying to pull someone in with numbers is not nearly as effective as if you include some value.   Trying to get me to do a quote is “normal” but what if you have a couple of sentences of information that they can use without you?  Build some good will.

The second point; Public data is amazing but not perfect.  Using the purchase date of a home is sort of clever, but not nearly as clever as knowing when to interrupt a cycle.  Sure, I do not expect everyone to have identical coverage to me but there are a few coverages that really should be standard.  How would you answer the question “What coverage do you have?”   And the follow up to this is, “Well why didn’t you offer me this coverage?”

It’s their money, help them spend it DON’T tell them how to.

Oh, and if those numbers require “*” and really tiny print, please reconsider how you treat your fellow humans.

I suppose putting together an ” 18 things to do in 2018″ is still reasonable, but 12 in 12 feels and sounds better.  Not to mention, my views on time have evolved a bit since than.  Sure, society agrees that the years end and we all “reset” to some degree.  But to much of that mentality doesn’t work, not sure that it ever did.

 

09.24.18
by

Customers. Period

But really, I call them Friends and Acquaintances;

“There are no strangers here, only friends you haven’t met yet”  William Butler Yeats

A bit deep on Friends from 2015 coincides with a training session with some pieces that are a bit off

I’ve never quite fully understood the philosophy of  “A, B and C customers….”  In the sense that I completely understand what is being said; focus your time on energy to produce a better outcome.  Great.  But, on the other hand, when you see in insurance today can partially be attributed to widespread use of this kind of attitude.

Depending on where you learn about it, it essentially says you need to classify your fellow humans by how much money they invest with you or how many policies they have with you, etc.  We humans label each other enough.  Was thinking this(and may expand on it elsewhere) when looking at my car.  The car has a logo.  Shouldn’t that be enough?  Nope, instead, in my case, it also had four separate markings to further clarify the company name, model name, and two features.  A previous owner even put another label on it.  Yes, the brain has a lot to work on each day, I get it.  But do we really need to continue to label things so intensely?

Consider an alternative, stems from a piece of how we work;

  • Neutral or better; essentially, you do not need to love everyone, just like them.  It is ok to be indifferent, as long as they are nice.
  • All of their money is green.  Period.  Shouldn’t that be enough?
  • Not everyone will fit all the boxes you propose for them.  Do they really need to fit all them? NO! Especially if we are neutral or better and their money is green.
  • Look at your whole ecosystem; the fact is we would really like to have an average of 3 policies per household/customer.  Averaging this is possible but it is not reasonable to have three policies in every household.  Period.
  • The actions of some customers actually let you help others.  Is this subsidizing?  Maybe.  But if you look at your customer base as a whole entity, this is healthy.
  • Everyone in the company needs to be willing and able to help everyone that calls.  It doesn’t mean they can or will.  Of course, we have people who specialize in commercial.  We have those that can sort of help with commercial.  We have customers that just prefer one person to another.  All of this is ok. Why?  Because we have things we do that make this ok.

This can go a lot of ways.  I’ve seen this explained in some fairly despicable terms.  I get it.  You have a finite, unmeasurable amount of time on this sphere.  Me to.  But, on the other hand, if you have the ability to help people why aren’t you spending time on that instead of classifying who to help and who not to help?

09.20.18
by

What you can do that they can’t

Apparently, I forgot to hit publish in September 2013

 

Enough already, so sad that industry publications continue to write articles about direct writers (state farm, allstate, geico, liberty mutual, etc.) and how the independent agents are competing against them.  Are you really?  Maybe it is time for a solid look in the mirror.  While you are at it maybe you look at your business plan as well.

Some things to consider;

1. Do you really want their customers?  I like leftovers but my wife is a great chef.  Her leftovers are the only one’s I eat, I’m not interested in anyone else’s.  The lesson, focus on what you want instead of what they do not want.

2. Let’s face it, most companies want the same preferred business; great credit, own a home, have a college degree, married.  Do you?  Funny thing, in my experience, I do not see this very often among the Geico policies I replace.  How about you?

3.  Do any of your carriers not have a top notch call center?  Don’t you have to have one if you want to be in business today?   Thing is just because you advertise it doesn’t mean it is any better than a company that does not advertise it.

4. If you have an agency management system you have all sorts of ways to automate your follow up with current customers and prospects.  Thing is you can time it up so you regularly reach them with VALUABLE information.  Please let me know the last time a valuable piece of direct mail came from a direct writer….Yup, me neither.  I think you might see a narwahl first 🙂

5. When was the last time you went shopping and the only thing on your mind was price?  Go look in your kitchen, let me know how many store brands there are versus big companies.  But that is not the real comparison see most of those store brands are made by the big companies.  Now look again, do you have any of the real cheap cans of vegetables?  Boxed goods?  Odds are the customers you want don’t have them either.  So why are you still worried about the price?

6. LOYALTY is most often reserved for PEOPLE, not brands or companies.  How many people know their call center rep?

7. Based on my results and likely yours, you can get competitive rates for 8 out of 10 people you talk to.  Let’s be conservative and drop that to 7 out of 10.  7 out of 10.  There is no mathematical way that if you only have one company you can duplicate that result.  So why spend the time on the 2-3 people that you cannot get a competitive rate for?    *See number 1 ” do you know who you want”

8. Back to loyalty for a moment.  You’ve built a business but have you built relationships?  We are in a long term business, the profit from any household/customer/client/business rarely comes in the first year.  How are you keeping them around?  This is differentiating yourself from those companies you are supposedly in competition against.  Heck it is also solidifying your position among any of the other local insurance options.

Bottom line, BUILD YOUR BUSINESS.  It will build faster if you focus on what  you can control.

09.10.18
by

“The System” is stacked

* Reflecting on some older posts in an effort to stir my brain back up and see where my thoughts have gone over the last 8 years*

Today it is off this one, A Day in Court; https://theinsurancebill.com/?p=184

The overall financial system we are in is fascinating.  Tough to say that the good the insurance piece of this system is helping or hurting more.  Yes, it allows entrepreneurship to flourish.  Yes, it is the underlying fabric of the entire financial system.  But, on the other hand, we do a lot of work in the personal insurance and micro-commercial space(think 1-5 employees 6 but rarely 7 figure sales).  This is where you see the dysfunction shine.

Take my court example and let us tie it into my two recent accidents( check Linkedin.com/in/billvanjura for a dozen or so posts starting 8/11/18).

On both August 11 and September 1, I was hit by 19-year-old male drivers.  One drives a car listed on his parent’s insurance.  The other has his own plan.  Both accidents were not my fault. Now the But and a few lesser known facts;

  • Yes, both are not my fault.  BUT, there was police involvement so both will “show up” on my record.  It is left to the carriers to interpret how this can impact my rates.  Sideswiped and rear-ended and soon to likely be screwed.
  • BUT, the second driver only had the minimum $10,000 in property damage.  We’ll get to a whole post on this but for now, know that this forces me to use my insurance.  For as much as I know this has been a harsh learning experience for me. Most consumers will not have an agents experience or knowledge(another reason to have one).  Even with that, I’ve seen a few things from MY company that are disgusting.  So not only will The System “get me” later, my supposed partner will attempt to get me now.
  • The first driver, on the parent’s plan, is smart to leverage this and improve his rates.  Otherwise, he’d likely work for 2-3 months at his part-time job while going to college just to afford insurance.  But, now he’ll see elevated rates for up to 5 years;
    • This is worse if he has other infractions
    • He should start working on his credit immediately
    • Funny, but if he gets married it will help
    • Hopefully, their agent knows how to really help…and is willing
  • The second driver was already not taken care of and my insurance policy will take care of things.
  • BIG ***Asterisk; if you are a massive national insurance brand and you are still selling on price.  And/or your people are afraid to offer more coverage even if it is a grande Starbucks a month in the price difference….you have some way bigger issues
  • He should also immediately start working on his credit
  • I’d wager quite a bit we will become his agent and he’ll spend less and get more
  • If his agent(company) is not laying out a plan or willing to help with one, he’s as bad off as the folks pleading down tickets

Enlightened Self Interest is a concept I embrace.  Essentially, helping others helps you.  This is a complete uphill battle and really creates a lot of conflicts for me.

The sooner the overall system improves/is fixed/ changes the better.  It’ll never be perfect but with regulators and carriers not working together with the consumers best interest as their first priority, it will take even longer to get to a better system.

05.05.16
by

Insurance and Time math…again

So I get a call from someone at a fairly large, established agency.  Had a few questions, was trying to “help” someone out.  Nice enough, but not necessary.  I appreciate the effort, I really do.

About two hours later I was on the phone with a new friend(some say client/customer) and was binding their policies.  Could be coincidence that this person was with the same agency that the other agent worked at…or maybe it isn’t.  Lets dive a little deeper;

I am all for helping people and sharing information and ideas.  Honestly not sure that I ever declined the opportunity to help and tend to be proactive with ideas and information.  But in this case, the deal was dead on arrival and likely represented zero revenue.  It also cost the ultimate and only equalizer, time.

Now the other one.  I was actually helping a friend out with this one as well, see I help.  In this case there were five or so policies and my help was needed with two so the other person can do the other three.  No problem.  Everyone wins, especially the new friend who now has two professionals working with them and a disgustingly large savings and better policies.

So if you are keeping score; another agent needed help and now we are both taking a nice package from a much larger agency.  The new friend(customer) was cool as can be but couldn’t understand why his agency of 10+ years hadn’t done this.  He didn’t need the full explanation but here goes;

Flight Control: ” Maverick you’re at 3/4 of a mile. Call the ball”   

Maverick: “Roger, Maverick has the ball.”

Great movie, great scene and for some reason it came to mind when writing this.  Why does it matter?  Because Maverick saw the ball; he saw the light which showed the clearest path to land the plane.   Most agents/agencies are distracted by so much nonsense and therefore overlook the obvious, easy paths to a “sale.”  They also seem to overlook how awesome retaining a customer is for the bottom line.

The agency that gave me this business, let’s be clear they let it go, has at least as many markets for this business as I do and likely has 50% more.  But they let it go.  Clean records, pay in full, seems nice, clean buildings, etc.  Everything you want.  Baffled.

Now some math, rounding the numbers to semi protect things;

Agent A had this package at $5000 and was earning 15%(conservative) commission so; $750.  Nice.

Agent B +C now have the package with more appropriate and improved coverage for $3500. 15% is now; $525

Now lets dive deeper; this “lead” cost neither of us anything.  Based on his past behavior he’ll likely stick around for a while.  Also, had Agent A simply been a bit proactive this person would have likely been thrilled to have a new premium of say $4500.  So you would have “lost” $75.  Not really.  You would have made a human being/paying customer happy and likely kept his revenue for several more years.   Also, if you had any sort of process in place to manage data the transaction can be done in less than 30 minutes.

To make it worse, I put my piece with a market you also have access to.  Sad.

But hey, I see your advertising all around.  You’ve been in business a long time, you have some sort of referral program, you “use” social media, etc.

But you lost sight of the ball……thank you.

P.S. The American public needs you to do better.

 

02.03.16
by

When the system breaks

I lose some sleep and wake up thinking about yesterday’s “loss.”  Not really a loss more like a time where everything seems to match up but it just doesn’t.  Everything is there;

  • was referred by a trusted person(is there any better way)
  • has been with me a few years(yup, 98+% stay)
  • had actually met in person(shocking but happens)
  • helped with a non-insurance thing(helped get one a job)

So you go into the renewal time ready to follow the plan and this time it doesn’t work.  Factually the overall plan always works.  But, within that plan, sometimes the sub-plan doesn’t get the expected result.  Take the other set of circumstances;

  • two people in a relationship(fortunately insurance is ahead of the rest of the country)
  • above average credit(yup, like it or not insurance scores work)
  • home owner(they better rethink this one soon)
  • college degree(not as valuable as you think)

Feeling good at this point but then the bad side of the Insurance industry steps in.  One driver gets a ticket for using his cellphone.  No big deal right?  WRONG  Fortunately the current rate is still competitive in the market.

Quick aside; the sooner we stop punishing people for things that are more driven by profit the  better.  Some companies have wised up and in many cases look at DWI/DUI differently.  Cell phone use is in a similar category.  Good people make mistakes.  We have an imperfect “justice” system. Act accordingly.

 So you look at putting the home and auto with the same company, this has not been possible yet,  and you think;

Life might be slightly easier if you couldn’t give a multi-policy discount

But that is not the case so we trudge forward and the news gets worse.  You are in a pretty good spot but then you remember the small claim last year.  By small I mean a payout of $429.  And in steps the flawed, old, non customer-centric philosophy of throwing away every other rating variable because somebody used their insurance.  Flag on the play, I am calling a foul or honestly just saying BullS*&$ .   You wonder why so many new “tech” companies are coming into “your” space.  You wonder why you have to(really choose to) spend so much money on advertising to get new customers.

It is because you are not treating your current ones very good!!!!

Enough already.  I am moving forward, my model works and soon enough this model will solve this nonsense as well.  Honestly, waiting for Insurance companies to do it is a colossal waste of time.

Moving forward.