An insurance agency re-tools for the future

Community Brokerage is one of the largest insurance agencies in the New York metropolitan area. They represent major carriers that provide automobile, homeowners and business insurance. Some of which include Hartford, Travelers and Progressive.

During the 1980's and 90's the company experienced an expansion to 9 branch offices and a 20% annual new-business growth rate. Their operations, logistics and carrier partnerships were robust and efficient.

Starting in the early 2000's things started to change drastically, for the worse. Selling insurance by investing heavily in local Yellow Pages advertising and opening multiple brick & mortar locations - stopped working.

Down to three locations and a 10% annual reduction in new policies, the writing was on the wall. Leverage the Web to generate sales, or remain stagnate with no growth opportunity.

The New Business Model

Realizing that most insurance customers wanted to conduct their business over the Web, management decided to close down most of the branch offices, consolidate the workforce in one location, and streamline their operations with a focus on Email and phone interactions for selling insurance and servicing existing customers.

The first step in becoming an “online insurance agency” was to build a Website. With a new trade-name and mission, a site was created - 01insurance.com

Website visitors are presented with an easy-to-use interface where they can learn about insurance, options available to them, and eventually, get real-time quotes from multiple insurance carriers.

Interested customers then initiate a communication with Community Brokerage agents working out details, question & answers, and coverage options.

Customer Management using ClientScribe

A multi-step prcess starts from the initial customer inquiry, all the way through the actual selling of the policy. Sending and receiving of Emails, follow-up calls, quote proposals, and questionnaires.

Using custom activity types, agents were able to log their interactions with the prospect. All Emails, whether incoming or outgoing, were processed within ClientScribe and documents such as quotes and policies were stored online. An extremely valuable option was the “follow-up” that helped agents identify when future policies would renew, and projected purchase dates of cars.

ClientScribe helped agents close deals at a percentage of close to 20% and standardize their procedures for making sure that every sales lead was treated comprehensively and timely. With a solid platform for interacting with customers in place, 01insurance was able to expand their business with initiatives for cross-selling new insurance products and a higher retention of renewal services.