2001 Best Practices Study

Analysis of Agencies with Revenues Greater Than $10,000,000

“Every time we lose a piece of business we catalog who beat us. If a particular producer is beating us consistently, I set out to eventually hire him or her. The first step is to let them know that if their situation ever changes, we would be interested in having them join our team.”

internal procedures and training on skills including automation, time management, communications, etc. Many of these firms invest a lot of effort in annual performance reviews, which are considered to be a key part of the training and development process. Consistently, these firms want to be known as the employer of choice. Frequently, this includes a commitment to have pay levels that are equal to or better than peers and competitors. Many of these firms also attempt to recognize and reward performance in a variety of other ways. Finally, most of these firms are regularly measuring their performance as it relates to their employees. This includes not only productivity measurements, but also levels of turnover and responses to employee surveys.

C OMMUNICATIONS – E MPLOYEE , C LIENT , AND C ARRIER

Even for some of the best firms in the country, communications continue to be a big and ongoing challenge. A number of these organizations have felt that it is important to have open communication with their employees and, as such, have given the employees broad access to information. This begins with an understanding of the firm’s mission and specific business plans and also includes a regular review of how the firm is performing against those business plans. Communications with employees are facilitated through a variety of means including monthly newsletters, employee meetings that are held several times per year, and through the use of the Intranet. Client communications are considered to be extremely important as well. A variety of means are used to communicate with clients with many of these firms reporting a heightened use of the internet. Typically, many of these firms will tailor the level of service and the basis of communication dependent upon the size and importance of the customers. For the larger and more important customers, a number of these firms have established stewardship programs where they will meet periodically with the client to review the firm’s performance against the commitments that have been made as well as using this opportunity to get input from the customer and to build relationships. Carrier communications are handled in a variety of ways. One of the more creative approaches was an annual meeting for all the agency’s carriers where the firm’s annual business plan was rolled out and the carriers invited to let the agency know how they could help in accomplishing the objectives. This has proven to be an effective way to communicate with the carriers, but also an effective way to shift the dialogue to what the carriers are willing to commit to do for the agency.

“It’s vitally important that we keep our employees informed so that they have adequate information with which to do their job, but also so that they can understand that they are an important part of the organization.” “For this segment of clients we agree on a written ‘Stewardship Plan’ that details what we will do, when it will be done, and who is accountable. This becomes the basis for periodic meetings with the client. They understand the quality of the job that we’re doing for them and helps to insolate us against competition.” “One of the greatest competitive advantages we can have results from the quality of the relationship we have with our insurance carriers. The quality of that relationship is directly dependent upon the quality of our communications with them.”

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