Beyond “Broad Brush”
It’s been quite a long time since I had the opportunity to sit with someone, other than friends and family, and help them understand how to use insurance to protect the things they treasure. Candidly I miss it!
That may sound funny to those of you that get to do this everyday and some of you may even wish this wasn’t your responsibility. If you like your occupation but currently find speaking with people about their protection stressful, it’s very likely because of frustration.
Frustration with the amount of time and steps you must go through to do the right job for your client or prospect. Frustration with the buyer’s focus on speed and 24/7 convenience. Because of the inefficiencies in the traditional independent agent system valuable time is wasted. Time that agencies could use working with more clients and assisting them to buy the proper protection to meet their needs.
Most of all you might be frustrated with the buyer’s focus on price over protection. Your competition has spent millions of dollars conditioning buyers to believe all coverage is the same and the only differentiator is price. We know that is a complete fallacy. Ask any insured who has had a loss only finding out afterwards they had too little protection or were missing coverage (either because of wording or by not having the coverage at all).
Your competition can give the buyer the speed and convenience they want. Most of the more successful ones achieve it because they only represent one carrier. They also eliminate as much of the human element from the buying process as possible. Their marketing is based on human psychology and they use artificial intelligence to eliminate cost and the human element.
Their process is not concerned with the needs of the individual buyer. They don’t worry about the intricacies of policy wording and coverage. They take a broad-brush approach to helping people select their protection.
They leave all the responsibility on selecting protection to the buyer. Too bad for the buyer who doesn’t buy the correct coverage or enough coverage. If you have significant risks not addressed in their automated buying process you most likely will go unprotected. They don’t care because you’re buying it from the faceless company, not from an agent or agency that is concerned with your specific needs.
I believe with all my heart that there is no better way for consumers to purchase proper protection on the things that matter most to them then through a committed independent agent or broker. Our process may be more cumbersome and time consuming but there are technological advancements coming that will be eliminating a good share of that.
So, don’t give up on what you as an independent agent or broker do best. Continue to be concerned with helping every person to pick the right protection to meet their needs. You are a professional providing a very important service for the clients you serve. The process may be harder and more time-consuming right now but the rewards of doing what’s right make it all worthwhile.
It’s that special feeling when you have done the job right and you know your client is properly protected. When they’ve had claim and you can look them in the eye and say everything will be OK. That’s what makes me want to go back to working with people helping them to select their protection. That’s the value of working with a committed, professional independent agent or broker.
