While online shopping is easy, building lasting relationships and sharing professional advice is the strength of the independent agency system. Remind your team and your clients of the differentiating value you provide beyond the sale and processing of insurance products.

These prompts should emphasize three particular strengths separating the independent agency system from other forms of buying insurance: offering comprehensive risk assessments, matching coverage needs with the right carrier and being a trusted advisor who understands how the risks and insurance needs of a business or family evolve.

Comprehensive Risk Assessments

Consumers and businesses are not specialists in understanding the fluctuating array of risks that can strike and cause financial duress. Each person and company has a unique risk profile that requires a comprehensive risk assessment. Buying insurance online will not provide the peace of mind that their exposures are understood, much less, as thoroughly insured as possible.

Your teams have the expertise to ask the right questions to determine the client’s risk profile. Since these exposures are not static, the opportunity exists to revisit the client and refresh their risk assessment, in turn, deepening the relationship with the business or family.

Since all insurance products serve the vital purpose of relieving anxiety over a catastrophic financial loss, a face-to-face engagement or phone call with these customers ensures no worries remain on the table. The inherent complexities of insurance policies insist upon intimate conversations with another human being who truly listens and responds with empathy, as well as expert advice. 

Matching Coverage Needs with the Right Carrier

The independent agency system provides the best means of optimally matching the insurance needs of a family or business with an insurer that can provide the most comprehensive coverages, absorbing these exposures. Based on the client risk assessment, agents have the skill sets to canvas a wide array of insurance carriers to transfer the customer’s unique risks.

A Trusted Advisor Who Understands Risks and Insurance Needs

Since people’s lives change and businesses grow and transform over time, an independent agent is best positioned to understand and assess the different risks that arise from these developments. With your analysis of the client’s evolving risk profile and subsequent advice on the insurers whose products best match these needs, customers can sleep easy knowing they have truly comprehensive coverage.

This personal touch is also needed to assist prospective customers looking for insurance for the first time or to buy it from a different insurer. Your ability to match future clients with an appropriate selection of carriers and products is crucial in their decision making, assuring the beginnings of a fruitful business relationship. Many carriers want policyholders funneled to them whose explicit risks align with their risk appetite.

The fact that you take an active role in your communities, endeavor to know the financial concerns of your neighbors and local businessowners, take pains to comprehend the complexities inherent in evolving risks and changing insurance coverages, and take pride in your hard work that provides customers peace of mind and adds to the incomparable value of the independent agency system.

Obviously, you are aware of the important distinction in the tailored insurance products and personalized services you provide consumers and businesses. Doing business face-to-face will never go out of style. While digital platforms have made it simple and fast to obtain insurance online premium quotes, the independent agency system stands alone in providing superior products and services, as it has for many decades.

As an insurance carrier that has been aligned with the independent agency system for nearly 70 years, we have high regard for the personal relationships that we cultivate with you. We are diligently focused on expanding our commitments to make our products and services of greater value to our customers now and into the future. By contributing to the success of your agency, our success will follow.