The Insurance Perspectives Podcast involves contributors outside of HawkSoft. The participants' views are entirely their own and may not reflect the views of HawkSoft.
This recap of the Insurance Perspectives Podcast gives highlights of the two episodes about HawkSoft Partner Elevate Teams. We interview Dom Piccirillo of Elevate Teams and Gail Crozier of Woodland Park Insurance Services, an agency that uses virtual assistants (VAs) from Elevate Teams. Dom and Gail discuss how implementing VAs can transform agency operations and help them scale for growth.
In this article:
- Part 1: Elevate Teams (Dom Piccirillo)
- Part 2: Woodland Park Insurance Services (Gail Crozier)
Part 1: Elevate Teams (Dom Piccirillo)
Watch the video podcast - Part 1
Question 1: Why does Elevate Teams exist? What is your reason for participating in the independent agency channel?
- Dom Piccirillo started his own independent insurance agency in 2014, before co-founding Elevate Teams in 2022 with a friend who had experience in outsourcing. Dom had seen firsthand at his agency the need for help on tedious tasks without taking on more full-time staff members.
- Elevate Teams provides high-quality virtual assistants from Latin America to perform unlicensed tasks and client-facing work like answering phones.
- Dom has tried sourcing talent from several different countries, including India and the Philippines, but chose Latin America because time zone, culture, and language were more similar with the US.
- VAs provide agencies with an avenue for growing their business and increasing efficiency without hiring full-time staff.
- VAs take the unlicensed work off the plate of agency staff, which allows them to focus on more complex tasks and improves job satisfaction.
“Elevate Teams provides less expensive labor that's able to do unlicensed tasks, which not only increases the value of your business but also increases the satisfaction of your licensed employees because they're no longer doing tasks that they absolutely hate doing.”
Question 2: If you had to pick one aspect of Elevate Teams that draws in and keeps agencies working with you, what would that be and why?
- Dom highlights Elevate Teams’ matchmaking process, which matches each agency with the best talent for their specific needs.
- The company uses a rigorous training process to find and train the best talent. Only 2% of applicants are accepted into the four-week training program, and up to half of those could be weeded out if they don’t meet the company’s high standards for quality work.
- During training, the VAs are given tasks and assignments, as well as weekly tests to ensure agencies are receiving top-tier talent.
- Gail Crozier praises Elevate Teams’ quality and vetting process, saying she noticed a significant difference in the quality of work and attention to detail of their VAs compared to a previous VA service she had used.
“We meet with clients to understand the way their agency works. Are they more heavily focused on commercial or personal? What are the tasks that they're going to be looking for initially? We ask a whole host of questions, which we use to match our talent to our customers.”
Question 3: How does Elevate Teams approach data ownership with regard to your customers?
- Dom explains that Elevate Teams never claims ownership of any data or processes that VAs may work on.
- Elevate Teams is compliant with New York DFS and meets stringent security standards.
- The company maintains a full data security and privacy program, and carries cyber liability insurance for added protection.
- Kenny observes that hiring a VA carries the same type of risk as hiring any other staff member, and is also somewhat dependent on the agency’s own data security measures.
“We are New York DFS compliant, which is the most stringent, and compliant in multiple other states. We take data very seriously. In addition to having a full data security and privacy program, we also carry cyber liability insurance.”
Question 4: What is the hardest part of working with insurance agencies?
- Dom finds the biggest challenge is agencies expecting VAs to be an “easy button” they can implement instantly without investing time in training.
- Success requires some upfront effort by the agency to build SOPs and train VAs on workflows. Conversely, some agencies delay starting until every SOP is outlined, which can also stall progress.
- Dom advises finding a middle ground: start small, train collaboratively, and scale as processes solidify.
- Gail agrees that the initial training process takes some time, but once her first VA was trained they helped onboard the next VAs, creating a self-sustaining system.
- Gail has found the quality of the VAs to be very high compared to other VA services and even compared to the in-person applicants her agency was receiving for positions.
“Some people feel like hiring a VA is going to be an easy button and they’re going to come in knowing everything. There is work involved upfront to get them up to speed and make sure that they’re doing things the way you want them.”
Question 5: What is the best part of working with insurance agencies?
- Dom finds it rewarding to see strong relationships form between agencies and their VAs, with some clients even flying their VAs to the US for office visits.
- Elevate Teams creates a win-win situation for both parties: agencies get the help they need, and VAs find good employment with US businesses.
- Dom emphasizes that treating VAs as part of the team through inclusion in meetings, office culture, and recognition boosts retention and success.
“It's amazing to hear the connections that people have and the relationships that they form over the years. That is the biggest win, when we're helping our client to better run their business in a more efficient way and we're also helping someone in Latin America find meaningful work with a US-based business.”
Part 2: Woodland Park Insurance Services (Gail Crozier)
Watch the video podcast - Part 2
In this episode:
Question 1: Tell us about your agency. How long have you been in the business, and how did you get into the business? Do you have any specializations? What gets you excited about insurance?
- Gail Crozier is the Chief Operating Officer of Woodland Park Insurance Services, which was founded by her grandparents in California in 1964.
- When Gail’s father retired in 2019, she agreed to help run the agency. She helped the agency transition from paper files to 100% digital with HawkSoft.
- The agency is now run remotely and services California and Montana with a small team of producers, several CSRs, and VAs.
- The agency had a hard time finding quality staff during the pandemic, and had poor experiences using other VA services to fill the gap before finding Elevate Teams.
“When my dad started to talk about retiring, I agreed that I would help take on the agency. It had been run very old school and was very much a paper-based agency, so it was a big process to move everything 100% digital.”
Question 2: What was your agency looking for when you first encountered Elevate Teams?
- Gail wanted to free agents from servicing tasks so they could focus completely on sales and growth. She identified a number of unlicensed tasks that could be offloaded from the producers.
- Gail had had poor experiences with other VA providers, but was recommended Elevate Teams and found success with their highly skilled VAs.
- She appreciates that Elevate Teams’ VAs are so well-trained, especially on insurance processes and platforms like HawkSoft.
- Her VAs speak great English and are bilingual, which is perfect for handling phone calls with her California client base.
- The VAs handle unlicensed work such as billing tasks, updating drivers, and endorsements, and can pass licensed tasks on to agents to handle.
“We had our agents doing everything, all of the servicing and selling. For my agents to be successful and to be able to grow the agency, I didn't just need one more person, I needed more. And that’s where the idea of VAs came in.”
Question 3: What is your agency able to do now with Elevate Teams that you couldn't do before?
- Gail feels Elevate Teams has enabled significant growth for her agency, even considering California’s challenging market conditions.
- VAs can handle complex tasks like managing wildfire defensible space requirements, freeing agents to focus on sales.
- Gail enjoys learning about the personal lives of her VAs and even gives them monthly performance bonuses to retain talent.
- Dom mentions that clients are not required to provide bonuses, but if they choose to, 100% of the amount goes to the VA.
“It was very important for me to have a team where the personalities all fit together. When I interviewed the VAs, I got to not only learn what they knew about insurance, but what they do in their downtime, because at my agency we care about that.”
Question 4: What is one thing that you would change about Elevate Teams if you could?
- Gail has no major complaints, but suggested having options for part-time VAs could be helpful.
- She contrasts Elevate Teams’ transparency and care for their VAs with a previous provider that underpaid their talent and neglected their welfare. She also appreciates that Elevate doesn’t charge a monthly fee for technology.
- Dom shares that Elevate Teams’ goal is for the VA to have a mutually beneficial relationship with the agency, where the VA also has chances to learn and grow their skills.
“I can tell my VAs love Elevate. They really like being there. They have continuous learning. They get to go to workshops and brush up on their skills.”
Question 5: How would you describe the value that Elevate Teams brings to your agency?
- Gail feels her agency could not function without their VAs.
- She sees the VAs as trusted team members who can handle critical tasks and alert her to issues that need her attention.
- Their professionalism and integration into the agency culture make them indispensable.
“I can't sing their praises enough. I love them and I'm so grateful I was introduced to Elevate Teams. We could not function without them.”
Get quality help from virtual assistants through Elevate Teams
Elevate Teams recruits and trains top-tier talent in Latin America for insurance tasks.
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