Agency Profile: In-House Publishing Makes Sun Shine

Sun Insurance Services Inc.

Orlando, Florida
Founded: 2003
Employees: 12

Sun Insurance Services of Orlando may be modest in size, but its in-house publishing operation has cemented its place in the Central Florida market. Sun has worked hard over the past 12 years to forge critical professional relationships with local community players in order to sustain its business and guarantee continued success, using a distinct publishing power to its advantage.

“Great things lie ahead for us,” says Jim Brandt, agency president, who adds that Sun recently closed its first major acquisition: an agency on the Space Coast of Florida with about 1,300 clients. “We’re beyond excited about the opportunities it will bring.”

SCOTT MAULDIN, COMMERCIAL LINES AGENT

We recognize that retaining quality talent, like our construction-specialized producer, is an important part of our continued success. It is also our biggest challenge. We have countered this with ongoing professional development efforts. We are constantly looking for talent, and when we find them we invest heavily in training. We are currently retaining John Fear of Premier Business Consulting, who meets with our staff monthly to teach sales techniques with an emphasis on cross-selling and retention.

JIM BRANDT, PRESIDENT

We’ve built a close relationship with many homeowners associations (HOAs) in our area by publishing their newsletters. Additionally, one of our commercial producers specializes in construction and trades, which is important because construction is exploding in Central Florida. Our technological capacity—specifically our marketing expertise, with full-A service printing and mailing capabilities—has solidified both relationships and given us a marketing edge. We’re able to support our HOA and commercial clients in ways other agencies cannot.

It’s probably not unique to our area, but we feel commoditization of insurance is the biggest challenge we face. We have more than our share of unscrupulous agents in Florida who set an artificially low price expectation by selling stripped-down policies, but we believe the best strategy is educating the customer and cross-selling. We leverage our marketing expertise and resources to deliver things like a new client packet, a welcome video and email campaigns. We also use texting, FaceTime and Skype to keep in touch in new ways.

DEE BRANDT, CFO

Among various marketing channel investments, the top two focus areas that have bolstered our marketing efforts have been our HOA relationships and a networking group of financial and real estate professionals we formed about five years ago. We publish quarterly, full-color official HOA magazines for about a dozen HOAs. All services are free to the HOA (costs are bankrolled by advertisers) and our own ad appears on the back cover of each issue. We also have the opportunity to meet with residents and board members at various special events and celebrations.

One of our clients owns a pet-sitting service. She used to mail generic pet calendars to her clients each holiday season. We suggested she hold a photo contest for her clients. The winning photos appeared in a custom calendar that we designed and printed for just a little more than they were paying. Now, the contest is held annually on Facebook, and for every vote, Sun Insurance donates $1 to a pet rescue service of the client’s choosing. Another client owns a consulting service for hospitals nationwide. They need workbooks for every program they do and were having them printed at Office Depot for about $10 each. We print them for half of what they were paying and don’t require large press runs, so they can better manage their expenses.