Retention & remarketing toolbox for beating the hard market

In the current hard market, client retention is more important than ever for independent insurance agencies. But retaining clients can be challenging when faced with carriers withdrawing from markets, rate increases, and an onslaught of remarketing requests from customers. This piece provides agencies with a toolbox of resources to boost client retention, drastically reduce remarketing, and streamline the rewrite/renewal process by honing in on customer education and leveraging automation technology.

Agency Retention & Remarketing toolbox

1. Know when rates are increasing for clients
   • Set up uprate alerts in HawkSoft to get notified when rates increase over a set percentage threshold
     
     
2. Understand the impact of remarketing on your agency
   Use ValChoice’s remarketing calculator or answer these questions:
   • How much time does the agency currently spend remarketing policies?
   • How many policies are remarketed each month? How does this compare to the total number of clients that were offered remarketing options?
   • How much premium was reduced due to remarketing?
   • How were commissions impacted by remarketing?
     
     
3. Create clear guidelines on when to remarket & not remarket
   See tips from Agency Performance Partners on creating a proactive remarketing plan
   • When to remarket:
     • When rate increases over a certain threshold
     • When there is a significant change in risk profile
     • When the client refuses all other options - after explaining:
       • Why rates are increasing for all carriers right now
       • The value they receive with their current carrier
       • How switching carriers may be disruptive to their policy
   • When to remain with the current carrier:
     • When the quality of the carrier remains worth the increased cost
     • When cost savings with another carrier are minimal
     • When the client has requested constant remarkets in the past
       
       
4.  TALK to your clients about their policies and options
   See sample rate increase scripts from Agency Performance Partners
   • Explain the context for the rate increase & why it’s happening
   • Empathize with the client and listen to their frustrations & concerns
   • Provide the client with multiple options for their policy
     
     
5. Streamline the quoting process with technology
   • Use bridge integration to send data from HawkSoft to your chosen rater
   • Use HawkLink to push data to raters, carrier websites, and more
     • Push HawkSoft data to your comparative rater
     • Push HawkSoft data directly to carrier websites that aren’t available in your rater (e.g. MGAs, mutuals)

Know when rates are increasing for clients 

Being aware when your clients’ premium rates are rising is vital in being able to communicate with, provide service to, and ultimately retain your clients. This will help you reach out to them proactively to resolve their concerns rather than leaving them feeling blindsided by an increase, which could prompt them to start shopping rates on their own.

See if you can set up notifications in your management system when the rate increases on a policy. For example in HawkSoft, you can set automatic uprate alerts to trigger if a download shows an increase over a desired percentage, automatically assigning a task to a chosen staff member to review. This gives your agency a chance to review policies with significant increases and proactively look at options for these policies. Don’t have uprate alerts set up yet? Learn how here.

Understand the impact of remarketing on your agency

Remarketing policies can be time-consuming and costly for the agency, and negatively impacts the carrier as well. In order to come up with a plan of attack around remarketing, you need to have a good understanding of where your agency currently stands with remarketing. ValChoice provides a remarketing calculator that estimates how much revenue your agency is losing on remarketing. Agency Performance Partners recommends taking a look at the impact remarketing has on your agency by asking questions such as:

• How much time does the agency currently spend remarketing policies?
• How many policies are being remarketed each month? How does this compare to the total number of clients that were offered remarketing options?
• How much premium was reduced due to remarketing?
• How were commissions impacted by remarketing?

Create clear guidelines for when to remarket a policy

Once you understand where your agency lies with remarketing, you can come up with guidelines for staff on when to remarket, what to check before remarketing a policy, and how much time should be spent on remarketing to keep it cost effective for your agency. Remember, remarketing a policy should be considered as a last resort, rather than the first option to get a client’s rate down. Here are some general rules of thumb your agency may want to implement regarding when to remarket or remain with the current carrier.

When to remarket a policy:

• When rate increases over a certain threshold
  Decide what percentage increase merits a review of the policy for possible remarketing. Keep in mind that this shouldn’t necessarily include increases that are due to the client’s activity – such as car accidents or traffic tickets, recent claims, etc.
  
  
• When there is a significant change in risk profile
  If the client has had significant changes to their family, business, or activities since the policy was originally bound, their carrier may no longer align well with their needs. If the changes are significant enough, a different carrier may be a better fit for them.

• When the client refuses all other options
  Keep in mind that a policy shouldn’t necessarily be remarketed simply because the client asks—they may simply be reacting to a situation they don’t understand. The client might only see that switching carriers could give them a discount in price, without realizing they could be sacrificing service, coverage, or claim handling by moving.

Before agreeing to remarket a policy, make sure the client fully understands this choice by explaining the following:

• Why rates are increasing across the board in the industry right now (have state-specific articles to provide around the topic)
  
  
• The value they receive with their current carrier in terms of coverage, service, and responsiveness with claims
  • Price is important, but so is having good coverage and claims service. Saving a few dollars on premium today could end up being more costly down the road if a claim worth thousands of dollars isn’t managed well.
  • Use a third-party source like HawkSoft API Partner ValChoice, which provides quality ratings for carriers in terms of service and claim handling, to demonstrate the value of the current carrier to the client. Another carrier may have lower premiums, but lower quality ratings as well.
    
    
• How switching carriers can be disruptive to their policy
  • They may lose loyalty rewards, discounts, and long-term relationships at the current carrier.
  • They may not be able to receive the exact coverages they have with the current carrier.
  • A new home or auto inspection may be required for the new carrier.

When to remain with the current carrier:

• When the quality of the current carrier remains worth the increased cost
  As your client’s insurance advisor, you’re the best positioned to understand whether the value they receive from their current carrier is worth the increase in rate. With premiums rising across the board in the current market, you may not be likely to find the same coverage and service elsewhere for a lower price.
  
  
• When cost savings with another carrier are minimal
  Remarketing a policy requires hours of work from the agency and carrier, as well as effort from the client. If the cost savings from switching are small, it simply may not be worth remarketng. The customer likely won’t find it worth the hassle of setting up their policy and learning the ins and outs of a new carrier for nominal savings either.

• When the policy has had (or client has requested) consistent remarketing
  If the client is constantly changing carriers to save a few dollars on their rate, they are likely costing the agency more money than they’re worth. Don’t be afraid to let clients get insurance elsewhere if they are never satisfied with their rate.

Leverage technology to automate client communications

Automated communications can be hugely helpful in reaching out to clients at the right time for conversations around renewal or rate increases, while cutting down on the manual labor of contacting clients individually. Agencies can leverage their management system and integrated solutions for these communications. For example, ValChoice has found that agencies using its solution are able to reduce their remarketing by 80% by utilizing automated campaigns that share the service ratings and value of their current carrier.

In addition, Agency Revolution, another HawkSoft API Partner, recently held a 4-part webinar series on how to leverage CRM and digital tools to set up effective communications for retention in a hard market. See all HawkSoft’s API Partners here, many of which offer two-way API integration for marketing automation.

TALK to your clients about their policies and options

Agency Performance Partners shares these astonishing numbers: 65% of the customers who leave an agency never talked to an agent before they left, while an impressive 80% of customers who did talk to an agent that year stayed with the agency. Picking up the phone and having a direct conversation with a client—in addition to email or text communication—may take a little extra time and effort, but it can have a huge impact on your client retention.

It’s a good idea to put together a checklist or rough script that staff can use to make sure they approach the conversation in the best manner and discuss all the important points (Agency Performance Partners provides some great example scripts). Here are some things to keep in mind during the conversation:

• Explain the rate increase and why it’s happening
  • If the increase is due to the client’s actions (car accident or ticket, claims, endorsements, cancellation of one policy in a package, etc), give specifics on what caused the increase and why. It’s helpful for clients to understand how their actions can affect their rate so they can act accordingly in the future.
  • If the increase is simply due to the carrier, educate the client by providing context for the current market and why rates are increasing for many carriers, not just this one.
    
    
• Empathize with the client and their frustrations or concerns
  • Listen to what they have to say without interrupting, and summarize their feedback at the end so they know you took note of their thoughts.
    
    
• Provide the client with options
  • Explain any discounts that may be possible on their current policy, including multi-line discounts for adding additional policies, telematic devices, safety courses, etc.
  • Explain whether or not remarketing is a viable option for the policy.
    • If so, present the remarketing options.
    • If not, explain the value of their current carrier and why staying with the carrier is beneficial (you may want to show them the ValChoice ratings for their current carrier, or even provide quotes from other carriers that are the same or higher than their current rate).

Use technology to streamline the requoting process

While having a solid plan in place for communicating with customers will greatly reduce the number of policies that need to be remarketed, some may still need to be requoted. Agencies can make use of technology and tools offered by their agency management system, as well as other integrated solutions, to cut down on the manual work this requires. Here are some areas where your management system can help automate the remarketing process.

Use bridge integration to send data from HawkSoft to your chosen rater

HawkSoft offers bridge integration with major raters, including PL Rater and EZLynx Rating Engine, that passes client and policy data from HawkSoft to the rater with a single click. If you have a rater but haven’t set up the integration with HawkSoft yet, search “Comparative Raters” in the HawkSoft Help Portal or contact Product Support for assistance.

Use HawkLink to push data to raters, carrier websites, and more

HawkLink for Google Chrome is a powerful data autofill tool included in HawkSoft at no additional cost. HawkLink can be used to flood any carrier or insurance website in Chrome with client and policy data from HawkSoft. That means even if your rater doesn’t offer bridge integration, you can use HawkLink to pass data directly into your rater’s website.

In addition, HawkLink is a powerful tool for quoting with carriers that may not be available in a rater, like MGAs and mutuals. In fact, during this hard market more and more carriers are withdrawing from raters, or providing inaccurate rates within the rater. With HawkLink, you can not only push data to your rater, but you can pass it directly into carrier websites to get accurate, bindable quotes. You can even set up HawkLink to open multiple carrier sites at once when you select Quote/Export in the Action Menu – see details on this tip and more in our blog on using HawkLink for quoting and other workflows.

 
Video: Quoting Multiple Carriers with HawkLink

Retention without the remarketing

While the current insurance landscape certainly presents new obstacles for independent agencies, consumers need expert advisers more than ever to educate and guide them through their policy options. By putting the right processes and technology in place, independent agencies have the opportunity to increase retention, boost the value of the service they provide to their clients, and reduce the volume and work of remarketed policies.