Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

A new social network is born. It’s called Agent Zoo. Go sign up.

Earlier this month, we invited our agents to share their experiences using lead management systems.

In all, 1244 people responded to our survey, and their input gave us greater insight into how our agents work after they receive our leads.

A third of respondents were very familiar with lead management and quoting systems. 41 percent were mildly familiar and 26 percent were not familiar at all with lead management systems. “Looks like I have some Googling to do,” said one agent. Just over half, 53 percent, reported that they didn’t use a lead management system.

We asked those who used lead management systems to share their experiences and list some of the strengths and weaknesses of their particular software. Here were some of the strengths mentioned (note that not all agents use the same system):

“All leads are in one area, and you can manage leads very easily and effortlessly.”

“The system is very well organized for storing information and assigning tasks to follow up when working leads.”

“The number one strength is having the information automatically uploaded in to my lead management system.”

“Ability to receive leads directly from InsureMe and stream into our State Farm systems with minimal data entry.”

“LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: STRENGTHS: TRACK SOURCE, COMMISSIONS, PREMIUM, RETURN ON INVESTMENT, BOOK SIZE PER AGENT, WHERE I AM MOST COMPETITIVE.”

“Leads can be imported easily and it’s quick to get the consumer a price.”

“effeciency for team, retention of info, great for executing systems”

“THE LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS ABLE TO PROCESS ALL THE INFORMATION FOR THE CONSUMER AT A FAST PACE, ALLOWING US TO PROVIDE QUOTES IN A TIMELY MANNER.”

“the best feature is lead info being auto populated in from insureme”

Strengths far outweighed weaknesses, but more than a few agents found flaws in their systems. Here are a few:

“The disadvantage with our system is that we have to front load a lot of the info in order so make sure we have everything we need to run a requote later on.”

“The transfer of information is not always clean or accurate.”

“weakness = data entry”

“Weakness is the lack of reporting/spreadsheeting options with the results.”

“takes time to train new staff”

We encourage our agents to use lead management systems. Two caveats: not all systems are created equal, and with all of them there is a slight learning curve. Still, most offer quick increases in efficiency. Used correctly and to their potential, they can make agents a great deal more successful in closing InsureMe leads.

Esquire.com has compiled “five insurance ads that make us forget how much we hate AIG.” With reports of swine flu and record levels of public distrust of big business, I figure funny videos are just the ticket for today. Also, it looks like robot insurance isn’t such a crazy idea after all.

As you probably know, people are on the move these days. They’re not leaving town, they’re leaving insurers.

A sour economy and rising premiums have consumers hunting for cheaper insurance. Today’s Insurance Journal reports on a new J.D. Power study showing that 30 percent of households making under $50,000 shopped for insurance in the last year. Of those, 45 percent ended up switching carriers.

The study, formally known as the “J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Personal Insurance Retention Special Report,” shows that wealthier households have been relatively less footloose. Of those earning more than $100,000 per year, 26 percent shopped for lower rates, with 31 percent eventually switching.

There’s generation component as well: generations X and Y are the flightiest groups, renewing at rates of 88 percent and 80 percent, respectively. On the other extreme, 93 percent of Pre-Boomers, those born before 1946, have been renewed with their insurers in the past year.

Retention is essential because it costs significantly more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. What’s more, according to the J.D. Power study, many insurers do not make a profit from individual policyholders until their third or fourth year.

The data reveal that people with multiple policies with the same insurer are less likely to switch. State Farm, for example, was able to retain 97 percent of its customers who had bundled auto and homeowners policies, but they could only hold on to 88 percent of their customers who had only an auto policy.

So dust off the old charm and start cross-selling!

Illinois insurance director Michael T. McRaith takes Allstate’s Tom Wilson to task in today’s Insurance Journal (”We’re in Good Hands With State Regulators“).

Writing in response to Wilson’s recent op-ed in the Times, McRaith minces no words: “the myth-laden pleas of an otherwise prudent Tom Wilson, CEO of Allstate, in search of federal regulatory relief should be viewed cynically.”

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought Wilson’s rationale for ditching state-based insurance was disingenuous.  Here’s a recap: earlier this week, Wilson argued that the current chaos in the financial markets (which is largely the result of ineffectual federal oversight) is evidence that we need to ditch state-based insurance regulation and replace it with–get ready for it–federal oversight.

Such a move would constitute a de facto deregulation of  insurance markets, says McRaith.

By remaining local, state insurance regulation evolves without caving to the whimsical profit fantasies that drove AIG and others to taxpayer support. Federal bailouts and loans painfully reveal the costly outcome of failing to put consumers first. Mr. Wilson’s industry deregulation ideal is not viable.

McRaith’s best case for state regulation lies in the fact that the only parts of the AIG behemoth that have managed to stay afloat throughout this crisis–the 71 US-based insurers–are the ones that were under the watchful gaze of state regulators.

Tom Wilson, the chief executive of Allstate, does a clever sleight of hand in yesterday’s New York Times.

Wilson uses the current mess on Wall Street to make the case for ditching state-based insurance regulation. While he appears to be arguing for greater federal oversight of the financial markets, he’s really just pursuing the narrow interests of conventional insurers, who have long bristled at tough state regulations.

Wilson correctly yet disingenuously notes that it was a sort of insurance product [credit default swaps] that got us into this fine mess, and it was an insurer, AIG, who issued them. “Unlike banks or investment houses, insurance companies are not regulated by the federal government,” says Wilson. “Instead, they are regulated by individual states, which lack the expertise to properly oversee rapid innovation or systemic risks.”

To sum up: a branch of AIG’s financial services division [which, mind you, is separate from their insurance division, a distinction Wilson fails to point out] wrecked the economy by creating a quasi insurance product, and state insurance regulators weren’t sophisticated enough to see the risk, and therefore, we should regulate insurance on a federal level. Never mind that credit default swaps had nothing to do with AIG’s insurance division and therefore nothing to do with state regulators …

I’m skeptical. There may be a lot of merits to federal oversight of insurance, and lord knows we need more oversight of the financial markets, but I think Wilson is being a bit opportunistic here.

Judging by this web page, Progressive has bravely ventured into the gay marriage debate—not exactly natural terrain for an insurer.

Here’s what the page says:

Being ahead of your time is never easy. As a community, you understand the importance of being progressive. It’s not just a word. It’s how you live your life. And as an insurance company, we work hard to live up to that name. It’s how we think, and how we treat our customers. So while you’re here, check out how far we’ve come, and more importantly, where we’re heading.

Most companies steer clear of the cultural battlefield. The issue of gay marriage is far from ’safe’ in political terms. Typically, if a private company offers a public opinion on something, it’s not on a hot-button issue;  it’s usually on something everyone can agree on—like, say, the cuteness of puppies or the deliciousness of  ice cream.

Today’s L.A. Times has a fascinating story of failed life insurance fraud—but unlike the bone-chilling story of Olga Rutterschmidt and Helen Golay, the ladies implicated in this scheme did not kill the insured: they fabricated them.

Faye Schilling, 60, and Jean Crump, 66, bought life insurance policies on two fictitious people, obtained fake death certificates and staged their funerals, in one case adding ballast to a casket to simulate the weight of a corpse.

You almost have to admire the creativity of it. Read the full story.

• Related: Life Insurance and Murder!

1993.

2009.

As you can see, we’ve made great strides in layout and graphic design since our early days. Still, our first site is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, if you removed the unsightly visitor counter, I’d say that it’s better looking than most sites currently on the internets. As I said to Patrick, our talented graphic designer, the old InsureMe.com has a pleasing minimalism (and I’m sure that was the effect Tim was going for when he designed it).

Want to see what the web looked like back in the day? Check out the Wayback Machine.

P.S. My apologies if this post is not interesting to anyone outside of 9800 S. Meridian Blvd.

This one’s for the independent agents out there: How satisfied are you with the insurance companies you represent?

J.D. Power recently issued a report that measured agent satisfaction and identified the things that influence it.

Surveying 1,589 independent producers, they discovered an interesting and perhaps surprising trend: the majority of agents value a good working relationship with insurers more than anything else—even compensation.

Jeremy Bowler, senior director of the insurance practice at J.D. Power and Associates, summed up the results this way:

Although it may seem that compensation would be the primary driver of agent satisfaction, in fact, elements that are related to agent support and products are the key differentiators. Insurers that provide helpful and knowledgeable business contacts and provide a variety of policy offerings help to better meet the needs of consumers, which leads to greater levels of satisfaction among agents.

Here’s the breakdown of factors, in order of importance to agents.

• key carrier contacts (32%)
• policy offering (23%)
• claims (16%)
• technology (13%)
• price (10%)
• compensation (5%)

The study also found that “agent satisfaction typically increases the more often agents interact with the business contact from their insurance company. Agents prefer to receive business contacts via phone or e-mail at least once or twice a month.”

My question, which is rhetorical, is this: What makes you think consumers are any different than agents?

Contact from insurance carriers makes you feel appreciated, valued, taken care of. The same holds for consumers. Let them know you’re thinking about them. Call them. Ask them if there’s anything you can do. Their satisfaction will rise too.

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