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Writer's pictureBrookelle Hunter

5 More Common Challenges for Insurance Agents & Ways to Overcome Them (Pt. 2)

We're coming at you with a 2nd part to our Common Challenges for Insurance Agents & Ways to Overcome Them with 5 more common challenges and solutions!

If you missed the first part, here are the challenges we covered there:

1 - Losing Customers & Low Retention Rates

2 - Customers' Main Focus is Price

3 - Burnout & Staffing Issues

4 - Too Many Mono-Line Customers

5 - Low Cross/Upselling Success

6 - Coming Across as Too "Salesy"

7 - Not Getting Enough Positive Online Reviews




Today, we'll cover 5 more common challenges that insurance agencies face and resources/ways to overcome them.


We'll send you to some different articles to help you figure out what it is your agency needs to do.


If you've got a specific challenge in mind that isn't covered here, please shoot us an email (info@engagex.com) or comment at the bottom of this post - we'll be sure to research and cover the topics you need guidance on!



The challenges we'll cover today (in our second installment):

Feel free to click on the one you're most interested in or read the whole thing!



Let's dive in!




1 - Hearing about customer issues when it's too late to fix them


We've all been there - trying to resolve a customer's complaint when it's just too late. And you think, if I had known about this sooner, I could have done something to fix this!


It's a frustrating place to be in for both you and your customers. That's why proactive retention is vital!


Insurance agent on the phone with a frustrated/stressed look on her face

Reactive retention efforts are inevitable for a business to have, but not all businesses put time and resources into proactive retention.


In this 2 part series, we'll explore 6 different benefits of implementing a proactive customer retention strategy in your insurance agency. In part 2, we'll go over the "how" to implement it in your agency.





2 - Trouble finding solid leads


Finding leads isn't necessarily the hardest thing, but finding quality leads seems to be a challenge across the board.


Because of increasing acquisition costs in the insurance industry, it can take as many as 7 new policies sold to cover the value of only 1 tenured policy. (LexisNexis)

Lexis Nexis research also finds that one-third of insurance policyholders change carriers before the end of their first term, which is often too soon for the agency to recoup acquisition costs, let alone make a profit.


If that's true, selling and onboarding a new client are far from the end of the battle.

That client needs to stay in your book long enough for your agency to see any actual profit from them.


This is why you must align acquisition with retention.

insurance agent talks on the phone with leads

Suppose you still see acquisition and retention as two completely separate functions in your agency. In that case, it's time to look at how much further your acquisition efforts can go with retention in mind.


Customers acquired with retention in mind are set up to stay with your agency longer, purchase more policies, and give you more referrals than those obtained for quick sales.


In this post, I'll be sharing 6 things you can do to better align your acquisition efforts with your retention strategy - working smarter, not harder.





3 - Your customers aren't open to review appointments


If you've only recently started to conduct customer insurance reviews with your current customers, you'll probably find that it's a new concept to many of them, and they might not be as open to the idea as you'd like.


Preparing your clients for a customer insurance review can make all the difference in the success of your appointment setting efforts, quality of the meetings, and overall effectiveness of your program.


Most agencies have some customers who are happy and enthusiastic about coming in for an appointment. Still, a large portion of most insurance clients tends to be somewhat hesitant to come in for the review.


The hesitancy can be attributed to many different factors:

  • They don't want to be sold to.

  • They've got a busy schedule.

  • They don't think they need to review their policies.

The list could go on and on.


Most of these hesitations come from not knowing the importance, value, and benefits of reviewing their coverage with their agent.


Whether you're...

  • a new agent just starting to hold reviews

  • a seasoned agent starting to hold reviews

  • or an agent who has been holding these reviews regularly for a while

...it's essential to prepare your clients for the customer insurance review.



BONUS: If you'd like to learn how to respond to common objections insurance consumers have when it comes to scheduling an appointment, check out this post that also comes with a FREE PDF download you can use: 20 Common Client Objections to Annual Insurance Reviews




4 - Trouble getting referrals from your customers


You know it; We know it. Referrals are valuable.


They're usually the least expensive lead type to acquire and typically spend up to 25% more on the initial purchase than non-referred customers. (Go Nectar)

insurance agent meets with young couple

They're often an easier sale as well - according to a study at Nielsen, consumers are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. (Nielsen)

The lifetime value of a referred customer is about 16% higher than non-referred customers. (Go Nectar)


However, actually finding and executing a process to receive referrals seems to be the most challenging part for most insurance agents.


I did some research to find tips and ideas that aren't talked about as much - tweaking your current referral program or introducing a new element could give it the extra push it needs to take off and bring in those treasured referrals.





5 - Capacity shortage in your agency


Capacity struggles are widespread in the insurance industry. And while the two articles I'll share here might feel counter-intuitive, agents who

  • outsource appointment setting (or other monotonous office tasks)

  • and train their licensed staff members to conduct review appointments

find they have the capacity for so much more!


insurance team is trained on how to conduct review appointments

While this article focuses on outsourcing for appointment setting, you can apply the principles to whatever other tasks you might need to outsource.


And in this article, you can learn how to increase capacity AND profit by training your licensed staff members for higher-level tasks like customer insurance review appointments.




That's it for today - we hope this gives you some insights into what you can do to finish 2022 strong. Stay tuned for another post with more common insurance agency challenges, and email us with any questions you'd like us to cover!

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