Spend Some money to make big money
Monday, August 4, 2008
Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. But you know well. However, have you applied this philosophy to your lines workflow? Given the dramatic changes in the industry, it is not surprising that your service lines is buffeted by these changes. The days of the ease and prices relatively consistent underwriting rules have disappeared. Getting a precise estimate is not easy, given the impact of the explosion rate increases and credit scores. If there are good comparative rating software in place, the gap in many portals carrier interface adds additional measures to what was originally supposed to be a "single entry" effort.
So what is a tormented personal lines used to do?
In an ideal world, quote-road issue is not littered with technological solutions and various disparate portals interface. And if there are non-proprietary technological solutions that promise to make this achievable, not all carriers are on board, which still left with several agencies workflows. In the meantime, however, institutions can take steps to simplify procedures to minimize the challenges of the current market and technology situations.
The first step is to identify and examine the source of considerable time redundancies in the workflow. When I help rebuild agencies and streamline their workflow, I ask some questions to identify a time-consuming tasks. Then we are looking at ways to reduce or avoid these tasks.
What percentage of your new business is issued at a different rate than originally quoted?
Some agencies report it is as high as 20%.
What is the most common reason for these differences?
The most common answer is that the outlook does not remember all violations of their car, or are not completely come to meet the agent original investigation. The MVR that the carrier will finally violations indicates that the prospect does not remember exactly.
How long do you spend answering questions on the differences, or explain the difference in perspective?
The typical response is a predictable: "Way too much." Revisiting a differential premium often means investigating why, perhaps even re-quoting from the beginning, back and often call "calm down" perspective. In the worst cases, it can mean the loss of credibility in the prospect of losing and potentially the company.
Why not get the MVR agency and / or subscription other reports before citing?
The usual response: "Because we have to pay for it if we do not write the policy."
Some agencies, however, reacted differently. I recently made an informal telephone and e-mail request of five organizations of different sizes. Four of the five indicated that they are applying tactics subscription in advance they get the MVR, CLUE and sometimes credit score (depending on the requirements of carrier) before attempting always cite politics.
Those on the other side of the "pay or not pay" debate will say: "But we have to pay for these reports. We do not want to pay for that information if we know we're going to write policy ". While some carriers to reimburse agency MVRs if they obtain the company, if the organization decides to launch preventive these reports, the cost of May to take them.
However, organizations such as ChoicePoint offers Web-enabled software that provides immediate MVR / CLUE giving access officer underwriting more details. Less time is past that further price would not be considered as subscription with accurate information. The accuracy of prices in relation to premiums also improves dramatically, reducing the time spent after the investigation makes a difference, which explains the difference of perspective, and sometimes even re-quote.
You can educate prospects on the listing process and the publication of a policy to inform them that you get a VCR and an index report, as doing so will ensure the most accurate and competitive quotations for their needs. Given this strategy, you're not put on the spot potential customers to review their memory for trafficking offences past. If the reports reveal a story so that this perspective makes him or her ineligible for one of your carriers, you can still advise and educate the perspective on how to use this information to improve its chances of a rate more attractive in the future.
So what about the costs? What about these reports pay for subscription in advance, even if it means not being able to write the policy? In my informal survey of five organizations which I have already said, I learned that the cost to explain, investigation and requoting "afterthought" is much more costly in time and money that costs associated with obtaining the individual or MVR CLUE report in advance.
Some agencies said they also used other "pre-selection" questions to get an idea from the perspective of the overall objective for the development of agents, particularly for walkin or call the prospects n were not covered. If there were other issues which excluded subscription insurability that had nothing to do with one or MVE CLUE report, the agency May not even the point of order one or MVR index.
Labels: Make Money
posted by Master @ 6:07 AM,