By Susan Rupe InsuranceNewsNet
June 24, 2018
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Sometimes brokers work so hard to
obtain a new client that they don’t continue to solve that client’s insurance
needs after the initial sale is made.
We’re talking about you, property/casualty agents and
health/benefits brokers who aren’t working together to provide a full range of
solutions to their commercial clients.
Billy Bridwell, vice president of employee
benefits with Keystone Insurers Group, presented a session on “Organic
Growth Just Across The Hall” during the National Association of Health
Underwriters annual convention.
“The insurance industry is notorious for being poor at
rounding out accounts,” he said. “We’re not doing enough cross-selling between
benefits and P/C for our commercial clients.”
Bridwell works with P/C agencies to help their
representatives sell benefits to commercial clients with whom they have existing
P/C relationships.
Even though a P/C agent and a benefits broker may be
working within the same agency, Bridwell said, there is a hesitancy for one to
get the other involved with serving the same client.
“There’s a mentality of ‘don’t mess up my relationship
with my client,’” he said. “But in reality, there’s already someone else
selling benefits to that P/C client and that someone else is a stranger. Why
not open the door to someone from your agency serving them?”
The age-old challenge facing agency owners is the lack of
cross-selling results within their agency model, Bridwell said. The “team”
doesn’t always work like a “team,” but like a bunch of individual silos growing
“their” books of business and renewing “their” clients.
“How do we fix that? Through building a team culture,
building trust and developing subject matter expertise,” he said.
After an agency overcomes the “silo” hurdle, it can create
an ideal team model to achieve organic growth potential, Bridwell said.
“The bottom line is that someone is going to offer your
client these risk solutions, so why not someone from your agency?” he said.
Susan Rupe is
managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications
director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning
newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at Susan.Rupe@innfeedback.com. Follow her
on Twitter @INNsusan.
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