Panelists for the series included board members of the American Insurance Marketing & Sales (AIMS) Society: Quincy Branch, Branch Benefits Consultants, Las Vegas; Bob Klinger, Klinger Insurance Group, Germantown, Maryland; Lisa Parry-Becker, William B. Parry & Son, Langhorne, Pennsylvania; Rich Savino, Broadfield Group, Warwick, New York; Joyce Sigler, with Jones & Wenner SeibertKeck, Fairlawn, Ohio; and Dulce Suarez-Resnick, NCF Insurance Associates, Miami.
Here are excerpts from the discussions:
How do you explain coverage limitations related to this pandemic?
Suarez-Resnick: "Independent agents wear many hats. We are an insurance counselor and a psychological counselor. They are hearing so many mixed messages in media right now, and they're having a hard time accepting that there is no BI coverage."
Parry-Becker: "We're sticking to the facts and trying to be empathetic. We are in the same boat as our customers. We don't have coverage either for this."
Savino: "Restaurants are always big community servants and it's time we help them get through this by listening to them on all of their issues. If we do that, I guarantee we'll have opportunities later on with them."
How do you approach account rounding, cross-selling and renewal reviews when producers can't visit in person?
Sigler: "The reality of delivering bad news is your ability to cross-sell gets easier. Because customers are listening."
Klinger: "We are offering solutions. We are getting ahead of the renewals 30 or 60 days out. We are taking a look at your workers' comp cost; let's look at your payroll. Maybe we can alleviate some of the pain now. It really shows the value of an independent agent."
Suarez-Resnick: "Customers are calling us about COVID. We go over other coverages, and they think, 'What if it's a storm?' So it's a consultative call."
Branch: "The sense of urgency with our staff was scary and exciting at the same time. We went into high alert. We were literally tracking every client. We have seen a lot more account rounding now."
Savino: "Even though they're working at home, customers and prospects still look at emails and still pick up the phone."
How can producers continue new business prospecting and proposal presentations?
Suarez-Resnick: "We do virtual meetings with prospects and go over the proposal. We're going back to people we talked with last year. We're doing a lot of Zoom and phone calls and even using What's App. It's not challenging; it's just different."
Branch: "I can talk on a video chat in a T-shirt now with a company CEO and he doesn't mind. He's happy to see someone."
Klinger: "I asked my staff to be careful of possible E&O. Let's be sure customers sign off on dropped coverage. And when this is over, we need to get back to them and ask to add the coverage back in."
How are you maintaining the mental health and wellness of your team?
Sigler: " We're doing a lot of team video calls, but we're also reaching out and talking with people one-on-one, asking them, 'How are you doing? What's going on in your life?' While work-at-home has become the norm, a forced work-at-home is totally different."
Parry-Becker: "I miss my people and my clients and my ability to be out in the community. Besides the weekly video meetings, we started a meeting at the end of the week. It's not about work. We just are together and hang out."
Savino: "We've had remote people for many years, with VOIP and cloud computing. But it did create stress for people used to coming to work and having those conversations. We have regular team calls on Zoom. We had virtual lunch recently and didn't talk about work. It was a chance to decompress a bit."
Suarez-Resnick: "I miss my teams and my fellow agents. We talk once a week. It's a balance of taking care of kids and schoolwork. We do a virtual happy hour on Thursdays at 5:30. It's a mental health happy hour and we talk about challenges of the week. It's a little relief and camaraderie."
Klinger: "We huddle with the staff over video and discuss the lessons learned each day. When we went paperless five years ago, we started using technology to help us do our jobs remotely. For example, I can't imagine where we would be today without the ability to access policy information remotely."
Sigler: "We encourage a normal work cycle with our employees. Stop and start working at the same time. It's easier at home to say, 'Hey, I can get one more thing done.'"
What's the future for agents?
Sigler: "I believe this will change how we look at our business and our culture. We will have to be a lot more creative in how we do business in the next 120 days as the reality of the policy cancellations hits us."
Parry-Becker: "We have an opportunity to shine for our people, having those caring and emotional conversations. We need to keep showing up for our customers, our employees, our carriers, our communities."
Branch: "There's a saying I keep on my desk, 'We can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and expect to be in business tomorrow.'"
About AIMS Society: Founded in 1968 as The Firemark Society, the American Insurance Marketing & Sales Society provides training, information and networking services designed to increase the personal and agency sales production of property and casualty insurance agents. AIMS was the first organization to honor property and casualty agents for sales excellence and to establish the industry's only sales-based insurance designation, the Certified Professional Insurance Agent (CPIA).