Your independent insurance agency's website must serve many purposes. It's often your client's first impression of your business, as well as your ongoing calling card for existing clients. It's likely the first stop for prospective employees, potential carrier partners and even your friends, family and neighbors. It's part of your reputation and identity. So why is it so hard to find time to devote to website maintenance?

Maintaining, improving and enhancing your website can feel like a full-time job for independent agents, who already wear many hats in their businesses. That's why the Big “I" has an array of resources to streamline your website workload. Many of them are available as free member benefits.

Here are seven resources that can add more value to your website:

1) Schedule a Trusted Choice® Digital Review

Your business website is often the initial point of interaction for potential clients, making it crucial for establishing credibility and trust. An outside perspective can reveal blind spots and opportunities for improvement that might be overlooked internally. The Trusted Choice marketing staff offers a comprehensive digital review, providing a personalized report with actionable advice to enhance your online presence and performance. The 30-page report includes a search engine optimization (SEO) score, keyword audit, competitor analysis, social media review and best practices documents.

A Trusted Choice digital review also includes an audit of your social media channels. The Trusted Choice team will take a detailed look at your branding and content across all channels and help develop a plan to create a cohesive voice and tone message across all platforms.

Visit trustedchoice.independentagent.com/programs-services/digital-review and log in with your Big “I" member credentials to request a free digital review for your agency.

2) Avoid E&O Claims Stemming From Your Website

Overstating your services on your website or in other marketing materials, such as bios or handouts, is an easy mistake to make. However, overstating can lead to significant risks, including errors & omissions issues and loss of customer trust. Overemphasizing your capabilities or making broad claims can elevate your agent standard of care, which means it's essential to accurately represent your services to maintain credibility and protect your business from unnecessary risks.

To help, the Big “I" Professional Liability team recently hosted a webinar series, “Your Website Says WHAT? How Your Agency's Online Presence Puts Your Business at Risk." The webinars focused on the E&O issues created by agency websites and an agency's overall marketing efforts. Watch the recorded sessions at eoguardian.com to better understand how all marketing efforts, including wording on websites and throughout your online presence, can elevate your standard of care. Other resources offer alternative wording and what you can do to prevent exposure.

Two additional resources are also available to Big “I" Professional Liability Swiss Re Corporate Solutions policyholders: a white paper providing a high-level overview of the website wording topic, and a website wording guide that details scores of troublesome phrases with suggested replacement wording. For example, “We can write it all" is in the “Don't Say" column with the suggested replacement, “Together we can find solutions to address your insurance coverage requirements."

Find these resources by logging into the E&O Guardian website, the Big “I" Professional Liability program's risk management website designed to provide Big “I" members with key information and tools to mitigate errors & omissions exposure.

Lastly, the word “audit" sends shivers down every independent agent's spine, but hear us out. A website audit doesn't have to be scary. Engaging a professional auditor to review your agency operations can be a great risk management tool and completing an audit can save you money on your agency E&O premium, depending on your carrier's requirement.

3) Conduct a Free Cyber Risk Assessment

Independent insurance agents must regularly review their websites for cyber vulnerabilities to safeguard sensitive client information and protect their business operations. In an age where cyber threats are constantly evolving, ensuring that your website is secure is crucial for maintaining trust and preventing potential breaches.

A cyber risk assessment helps organizations identify cyber risks and provides mitigation guidance. As part of the overall risk management process, the cyber risk assessment follows three steps: identifying assets and their values; evaluating threats and vulnerabilities, as well as the likelihood of a cyber incident; and compiling an assessment, which includes mitigation recommendations for resolving vulnerabilities.

A thorough cyber risk assessment should include both quantitative and qualitative components, calculating risks based on probability and potential impact. Risk assessments catalog an organization's specific risks, their potential impact and guidance to mitigate vulnerabilities.

To complete a cyber risk assessment for your agency's website, head to Coalition Control. Coalition's automated scanning and monitoring provides a view of an organization's most pressing cyber risks and shows you how to fix it. Sign up with just your email address to start controlling your risk right away.

Big “I" members can contact their state Big “I" Professional Liability program manager for more information about purchasing cyber liability for their agency. Big “I" members also enjoy market access to Coalition via Big “I" Alliance Blue to provide cyber liability coverage for their clients. A Coalition cyber risk assessment is provided with each cyber liability submission for entities that own a domain.

4) Load Up on Custom Videos, Graphics and Explainers

A content-to-share library is an excellent resource for agencies without a dedicated marketing person, providing ready-made materials to maintain an active and engaging online presence. Trusted Choice offers a robust library containing over 1,300 marketing assets including graphics, infographics, videos and articles to share on social media or your site. Trusted Choice recommends that Big “I" members edit and customize the graphics with their agency branding using Canva software to make these assets even more flexible.

Filter content by market, such as home, auto and workers compensation, or by themes, such as summer, insurance education and hurricane.

Also, you can access entire campaigns to enhance your website, such as the “In Your Corner" campaign, which showcases how independent agents have got their clients' backs in the hard market; the “Insurance Explained" campaign, which answers many commonly asked questions by consumers; and the “Local Like You" campaign, which highlights that Trusted Choice independent agents are local small businesses like many of their clients.

5) Add Flood Insurance Quoting Capability

Despite news reports and public policy discussions about increasingly severe weather, including flooding, 59% of U.S. adults say they are not likely to reevaluate their need for flood insurance, according to a survey commissioned by Selective and conducted by The Harris Poll.

Of the U.S. adults surveyed, only 14% had flood insurance. Among those with a standalone flood policy, 66% had filed a claim, which is an indicator of the prevalence of floods.

Thanks to the association's long-standing relationship with Selective, Big “I" member agents enjoy access to personalized support, competitive commissions and an easy-to-use quoting platform from the Big “I" Flood program.

Selective's self-service flood quoting tool, QuoteItNow, allows you to maintain your personal touch with customers while empowering them to start the flood quote process at their convenience—giving you more time to focus on building relationships.

After a customer completes a QuoteItNow application, they will receive a preliminary quote along with an email directing them to contact your agency. Simultaneously, your agency will receive a confirmation email and a quote in the “Consumer Direct" queue on your agency dashboard at selectiveflood.com. All you have to do from there is contact your customer to verify the information and bind the policy.

Learn more about how to save time when quoting flood insurance by adding QuoteItNow to your website at independentagent.com/flood.

6) Jazz Up Your Social Channels

The customer journey doesn't start and stop on your website; it should be complemented by a robust social media strategy to engage and retain clients throughout their experience. A cohesive online presence across multiple platforms ensures that your message reaches customers where they are most active, fostering continuous engagement and trust. Social media allows you to interact with clients in real time, address their concerns, and showcase your agency's personality and expertise. By integrating your website with a strategic social media plan, you create a seamless and comprehensive customer journey that enhances satisfaction and loyalty.

A well-thought-out social media strategy complements a well-done agency website. But who's got the time to do all that writing, posting, sharing and liking? A paid subscription to a social media scheduling service can do the heavy lifting for you.

Trusted Choice has partnered with Social Jazz, an automated marketing tool that allows your agency to “set it and forget it" when it comes to routing marketing posts. Normally $199 per month, Trusted Choice makes Social Jazz available for all Big “I" members at $15 per month or $150 for 12 months with an upfront payment.

7) Ready-Made Toolkits for Client Communication

Recently, Trusted Choice^® released the AI Marketing Toolkit for Independent Agents, designed for independent agents eager to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance client relationships, optimize marketing efforts and drive business growth.

The toolkit provides resources for mastering AI prompts, using AI for SEO, auditing an AI chatbot, ethics and best practices, and more. Many independent insurance agents are already embracing AI technologies in innovative ways, enhancing their operations, client service and marketing strategies. The toolkit dives into simple and effective ways agents can utilize AI while avoiding many of the pitfalls associated with the burgeoning technology.

To discover how AI can help deliver personalized client experiences and make data-driven decisions that set you apart from the competition, download the toolkit.

Further, the Big “I" just released an expanded version of the Trusted Choice Hard Market Toolkit. The newly expanded resource—which builds upon the toolkit first published in July 2023—covers a wide range of updates and strategies for navigating the challenges posed by the hard market. Agents can streamline a plan, communicate effectively, handle tough questions and ultimately retain clients in a hard market. 

Elif Wisecup is Big I Advantage^® director of marketing and publications.