How do you go about selling risk management when premium ratesare falling and insurers are being ever more generous with theircoverage? That was the question we posed to those entering thisyear's sixth annual National Underwriter “Commercial InsuranceAgency Of The Year” award program. Our winners had plenty to say onthe subject and other key challenges during NU's lively “State OfThe Agent Roundtable” discussion.

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All three award-winning programs were profiled in NU's Sept. 24edition. However, as part of the award program, the threewinners–this year's “Champion” and two agencies receiving an“Honorable Mention”–were treated to a weekend in New York City lastmonth. While in town, they joined me and our 2006 Champion for anin-depth discussion of the challenges facing independentagencies.

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Highlights of that lively roundtable session follow, includingcapsule bios to briefly tell you who the winners are and what setstheir agencies apart.

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You may also hear this year's winners reveal the secrets oftheir success firsthand by registering–free of charge–for NU'sfirst Virtual Conference on Nov. 15, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.EST. Go to http://events.unisfair.com/rt/nuco~futureofinsurance fordetails on this and the other six online sessions, which will bearchived and available online through Feb. 16, 2008.

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For now, read on for tips about prospecting, account retention,recruitment and training from four outstanding agencies that serveas role models for their peers.

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Sam Friedman:

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Editor, National Underwriter

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How do you keep risk management front and center with yourclients and prospects with prices falling in so many parts of thecountry for so many lines of coverage?

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David Becker:

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Cottingham & Butler,

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2007 Champion

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First of all, our heritage has been with clients who want totake risk. Something like 75-to-80 percent of our business is withthose who are already in the alternative market, and hopefully,over time, we have taught them that preventing and managing claimsis the most important long-term way to control their costs. Andmost of our clients have bought into that.

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Another big part of our success is we deliver what we design. Weactually have the TPAs, the loss control consulting and our owncaptive consulting group.

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Clients get to know our service people, so even if someone elsegets them a cheap number from a different carrier, they hate togive up the service people they've worked with for many years. Itcreates another hook with the client, and they don't want to givethat up for a one-time deal and then not be able to get thatattention.

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John Turner:

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J. Rolfe Davis Insurance,

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Honorable Mention

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At the end of the day we're going to sell you an insurancepolicy, but that's not where it starts. Our process is to discover,design, implement and administer. It's a continuous processthroughout the year.

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We also super-qualify our prospects. So if they don't accept inthe beginning what we do and how we do it, we leave, because ifthey want somebody to create an auction, we are notauctioneers.

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Once they become a client, they've already bought into ourconcepts, so even in a softening market they'll stick with ourprogram. The majority of our customer base is really sold on whatwe do as a solution provider. So we haven't seen a lot of threats,because clients anchor onto what we provide for them. It's harderto change what you're doing if it's working.

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Sam Friedman:

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Anderson, if your agency did not have a disaster recovery planin place, you wouldn't have survived Hurricane Katrina. Your agencyis in New Orleans, with offices right across from theSuperdome!

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W. Anderson Baker III:

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Gillis, Ellis & Baker,

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Honorable Mention

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Indeed! Certainly, we are not enjoying a soft market in NewOrleans right now, but that gives us that much more opportunity totalk to a client about what they're getting besides just theinsurance. We can tell them that we practice what preach.

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We had a growing risk management and loss control departmentprior to Katrina, and we found that it was such a value that weexpanded it after Katrina to accomplish two goals for a client.Certainly, we want to help on the human side–bodily injury issuesto employees and protection of their own property–but we also useit to make the client more attractive to underwriters.

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There's a very skinny set of underwriters willing to writecoverage in New Orleans right now. We make it clear to the clientthat one of the things we are trying to do is make insurance easierfor you to obtain in a very difficult market, and that is franklyhow we are able to keep clients active with us.

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If we keep telling them over and over again that insurance issimply part of their risk management program, even though it's anecessary part, they've got to make the rest of the house look goodso we can buy the insurance for them. Usually this strategy worksvery well for us.

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Sam Friedman:

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What if an agent comes to you and says, “About this riskmanagement pitch–what's in it for me? Do I really need to do this?You know, I'm a pretty good salesman. I've got good connectionswith my underwriters. Risk management sounds like a lot of work. Isit really necessary for agents to get into all this to besuccessful in the next five, 10, or 15 years?

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Jack Galloway:

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Barney & Barney

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2006 Champion

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Today, agents must add value to the insurance transaction.Otherwise we will be replaced by a competitor offering the cheapquote of the day.

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For clients, it's not just about their current premium but theircost of risk. How do you and your clients lower their cost of risk?You do it with loss prevention, safety training and good claimsmanagement.

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This whole combination of risk management activities that agentsinstill in the client makes us valuable to them and keeps theircosts down.

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Sam Friedman:

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How do you go about distinguishing yourselves–not just with arisk management philosophy but also on delivery of such losscontrol services?

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David Becker:

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One of our first commitments is that we'll actually build thecapabilities in-house to deliver what we said we were going todesign, so when we say “you should do X,” we actually know how todo it.

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Second, we offer written service timelines. We give every one ofour clients, every year, a 12-month schedule of what we're going todo for them, and then we track and monitor everyone'sresponsibility to deliver that for the client.

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We tie our compensation bonus structure for our service peopleto retention–but if they don't hit the written service timelines,they don't get the bonuses. So we are reinforcing to all of ouremployees the need that when we make a promise to a client, wedeliver–and against a time frame they can count on.

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That has really helped us elevate the game and the commitment ofour internal folks. Plus our client now says, “These guys have saidthey're going to do something, they write down what they're goingto do, and then they do it.”

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And then we review it every year going into the renewal, andmake the game plan about where they feel they have their biggestissues and how we should align our resources to help them deal withit.

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Sam Friedman:

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As more and more agents begin to adopt a risk managementapproach–or at least claim to have done so–how do you set youragency apart?

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John Turner:

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We're professional service providers, and what's critical isbetween the ears in my mind–the intellectual capital and experienceon your team that allows you to identify the needs and craft theappropriate solution.

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So it starts there, but it's also what you deliver. We roll outservice-level agreements similar to a timeline. But it's not acookie-cutter approach. We have standardized systems that haveenough flexibility to customize based on client need andsegmentation.

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I'm a huge believer in segmentation because everybody wants totalk about risk management and all these value-added services, butyou have to determine what is really meaningful to eachcustomer–who has a role in developing and executing your serviceagreement. They become a stakeholder in the process all year.

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You have to deliver what you promise, but so does the client.You need to stay on top of them so they hold up their end, becausea lot of what we do pertains to what the customer provides usthroughout the year. They're holding us accountable, but we alsohold clients accountable to themselves.

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We do quarterly stewardship reports, and we compare our progressto the milestones and checkpoints we've set up throughout the year,so they financially understand how their program is running, andfrom a service perspective, they understand the challenges and whatservice is being delivered.

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Sam Friedman:

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How do agents go about keeping risk management in the game planwhen competitors show up promising deep premium cuts oninsurance?

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W. Anderson Baker III:

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The client has had such price pressures imposed on them the lasttwo years, now that we're seeing a little bit of softening, theclients who are paying two-, three- and four-times what they paidtwo years ago for property insurance will now grab any lifelinethey can.

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While we're not as formal with things like service-levelagreements, we do want to make sure the client knows what we'veestablished for them–that we're actually hitting the benchmarkswe've agreed to.

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Then we make sure they are forewarned about this comingsoftening of the market, and remind them we got them through thistough market for the last two years, that we've kept our riskmanagement program in place, and that if we're doing it right,we'll be able to go to the market, hopefully stay with the sameunderwriters and bring their price down.

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If not, we'll shop it for them but try to give them a reason notto set up an auction. That's a losing proposition for us, and wefrankly don't want to get into that kind of a shopping game.

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Sam Friedman:

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Being a risk manager requires a different set of skills thanjust shopping for insurance. Once an agency makes a commitment toput risk management first, how do you go about preparing your salesstaff to pitch that and your service staff to deliver? How do walkthe walk, rather than just talk the talk?

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Jack Galloway:

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It doesn't happen overnight. To be successful selling riskmanagement services as a broker, you must have that risk managementtalent on staff, and your sales people have to understand it is atrue differentiator.

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The salesperson is the one who coordinates that risk managementteam on behalf of the client, so there must be a lot of training.Sales people need to understand and communicate how effectiveclaims management and loss prevention can be to help theclient.

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Generally, we will bring risk management staff with sales peopleout on the calls, or we will bring the sales manager who helps inthe early stages of a salesperson's career to communicate the riskmanagement services we offer.

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Sam Friedman:

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What role does risk management play in landing newprospects?

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David Becker:

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When we're working with any prospect of significant size, wesend along on our nickel a loss control person to do an assessmentbefore we bring up insurance, because we think it's very hard tomarket the account to a carrier if we don't understand theexposure, and especially if the client doesn't understand therisks.

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We like industries that have tough coverage problems, because ofour ability to get the underwriters to understand what the issuesare, and then what we're going to do about them. So we start with arisk management assessment right off the bat.

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Second, when we have a new account to pitch, our sales managerstypically ask, what are the three nonprice reasons that thisprospect should buy from us? What are we going to do for them thatwould make us earn the business?

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Sam Friedman:

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Is that approach ever a hard sell internally? Do your own peopleever revert to the price-shopper mentality?

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David Becker:

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We try in our sales meetings to instill some discipline in oursales process, and we bring the whole team–our marketing staff andsome of our loss control people–into the weekly meeting. We examineeach account and talk about what we can do for them given what thesafety folks saw, what the producer saw, what the client's needsare.

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That leads us to develop a proposal outlining what we're goingto do. And the proposal isn't just, here's the price of theinsurance, but here's the service and here's the process of theloss control strategy that we have in mind for you.

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Once we win an account, we always tell our sales executives thatthey are the captain of the team. It doesn't mean that they playevery play or every position, but they have to orchestrate theother members of the team–our service staff, our safety staff, ourclaims staff–to make sure they are delivering what we promised,based on our written service timeline, which is like ourplaybook.

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We're just instituting a new system now that if anyone misses atimeline, electronically and automatically the sales executive getsan e-mail the minute anything is missed. We want to reinforce thenotion there's no reason you can't be accountable. We're going togive you systems and processes to make you accountable.

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Again, it's a team concept. We don't expect the producer to bethe expert on loss control or claims, but there's no excuse forthem not getting the right people in the room, or getting them outto the client to serve them.

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John Turner:

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Risk management is a resource game. You can't just change yourbusiness overnight and think you're going to be a risk manager.Culturally, you have to evolve your business over time, which takesthe right people, the right resources and the right tools.

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We use a multidisciplinary team. We start in the discoveryphase, where we're learning a lot about the prospect, and they'relearning about us in the process. We have to earn the right to meetwith them. You have to know something about your prospect beforeyou ever walk in the door.

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We don't just look at their commercial insurance. We look attheir entire operation. When you think about a middle-marketbusiness, they're dealing with a multitude of professionalservices. They have a legal team, a CPA firm they use as theirauditor, a banker and an insurance person.

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If I'm their attorney, I know their contracts–that's about it.If I'm their CPA, then I'm auditing their financials. But if youthink about what we do, to properly insure that risk we need tohave an understanding of the entire company–from the financials,operations, human resources, the contracts they have in place.

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That means we need to craft a total solution. To do that, wehave to be a strategic partner with our customers. So, we like tohire folks that either have an MBA, or they are MBA-caliber andwe'll help them get the degree. We want more of a businessconsulting approach where we can pluck resources internally.

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Rather than just selling them insurance, if your approach is tocraft the solution, and have the resources available to deliver it,and you hold the producer accountable that's leading the team asquarterback, you are going to have that account back at renewalbecause there are resources and support staff attached to thataccount the client doesn't want to lose.

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W. Anderson Baker:

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Some of the larger national brokers tend to have a “finder,minder, grinder” mentality. We don't have that.

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When someone hires me as their insurance agent, they get me forgood. I am with that account forever. I've got clients I've writtenfor 20 years, and while, yes, some of the work is passed down tosupport staff, generally, an account that is of any size deals withme and only me on just about everything except for certificates ofinsurance and auto ID cards.

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But if they've got strategic issues, if they are having claimsproblems, they are going to come to me, and I will sit down withour risk management people and figure out how we craft asolution.

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I want to know that they've got a problem. I want to know what'sgoing on, so they don't get lost in our shuffle. It's not as thoughI come into a renewal meeting only.

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Large brokers fly in from out of town, and we compete with thatevery day. But when you have to fly in that expertise, it losessomething as the months go by, and you have 11 months of havingnever seen the person and then have a steak dinner with them once ayear. The client is really not getting much of a bargain out ofthat.

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Sam Friedman:

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Risk management talent and expertise doesn't come cheap. How doyou get compensated for all this value-added service?

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Jack Galloway:

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Most of the services we are providing are not on afee-for-service basis. We offer value-added services for choosingBarney and Barney. With our agency, you won't just getinsurance–you'll get some loss prevention and some claimsmanagement.

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We take a client segmentation approach, where we look at thesize of the account in terms of revenue and exposure. How manyclaims are they having? How many locations do they have? What is itthat the client feels they need from us so that we can worktogether to design a good plan?

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As long as the risk management plan is reasonable andappropriate for the size of the account, then we go ahead andexecute that plan without any additional fees beyond ourcommission. But there are services we can break out for anadditional fee–if somebody wants a detailed business continuityplan, for example.

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David Becker:

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For those who say risk management services are expensive todeliver, I'd challenge them to take a look at what five points ofretention does–it's absolutely astounding in terms of how much yousave by keeping accounts with good service. When you run thatnumber, you realize it isn't that expensive to do really good riskmanagement because the benefits are enormous in reducing clientturnover.

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We have to get compensated for what we do. If there are somepeople that need more loss control services, we charge a higherfee. We do some claims work fee-for-service.

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The way we approach clients is very similar to the way weapproached them when I was in the consulting business–which is, doyou want your partner to be financially successful? Do you wantyour partner to be able to invest in the right tools? If so, we aregoing to charge an adequate amount of money to compensate us, sothat we can reinvest in the tools and our people.

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If you've got a relationship with your client where both of youare aligned, and you're trying to work on their issues, theyunderstand that. They aren't trying to nickel-and-dime you. Theywant you to be successful and bring the best people and the newestideas. So, it's really been about having a professional, grown-upconversation about it.

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W. Anderson Baker:

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We are almost exclusively a commission-driven agency, so we takewhat we can get from the companies. Contingencies have not been abig factor for us in the last couple of years for all of theobvious reasons.

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It is expensive to deliver these services, and we don't chargemuch for them–unless a client needs something absolutely specific,tailor-made. But my colleagues are right in terms of retention–theservice is worth it to keep my clients in my book.

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A key is not to deal with somebody if risk management is notwhat they're all about. If they are just a price-shopper, we'lldrink coffee and that's about it. We just don't have enough time.I've done enough practice quotes in my career. I don't need to doany more. If they don't want to buy into a risk managementphilosophy, we can move on to someone else who does.

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Likewise, my underwriters have done a lot of practice quotes aswell. We don't want to waste their time working on a submissionwhere we are one of three brokers going to 12 insurance companies.Underwriters are extremely busy. They look for a quality accountthat they have a chance of writing. So, the expense issue is notall that much, because we know what we are going to get out ofit.

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Sam Friedman:

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With the increasing number of agencies pitching themselves asrisk managers, have clients gotten the message? Or do you stillfind yourselves called upon to just get them a price quote becausethey always put their insurance agency contract out to bid everyfew years to keep everyone honest?

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David Becker:

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We try not to pursue relationships that are based purely onproviding a quote. We aggressively qualify accounts, and if we areone of many brokers, we don't work the account. If they've beenwith a local broker for 15 years, we usually don't bother becausethere's a relationship there.

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Lately, however, I've challenged our people to ask a secondaryquestion if the prospect says they have a longtime relationship andare happy with their local broker. Does that prospect really knowwhat they're missing? And, if they're not sure, what can we do togive them a taste of what we can do? I tell our folks, those shouldbe the easiest pickings out there.

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But if we can't find a way to demonstrate our value throughreferences, I'll go further and say, “Let's put some money atstake. Let's go do a couple of services for free for you. We'llhave our safety people come out and spend a week with you.” Mysense is, once they get a taste of what we do, it will change theirminds.

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Sam Friedman:

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Is buyer attitude ever a problem in pitching a prospect? Mostpeople don't seem to relish dealing with insurance issues.

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David Becker:

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There is a great deal of negativity about insurance. Most peopledon't like insurance-buying, or at least don't look forward to it.But if they haven't experienced it in a different way, you can'tnecessarily flip your nose at them and say, “Hey, they are juststupid buyers.”

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Maybe they just don't know what they need, or how riskmanagement can work for them, so our job is to get them a newexperience in a quick and unique way and open their eyes. If wefeel like we can do that, we will invest in that.

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John Turner:

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I think the lack of compensation transparency in our businesssometimes devalues what we do. A smart client wants to see theirbusiness partner succeed and make money. So, we have that kind ofmentality. We are not going to devalue ourselves. We want to makean honest living. We are a privately held business that needs tomake an operating profit so we can employ our staff and do right byour clients.

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We've developed a document, like the benefits summary you wouldget from your employer in the HR world, that shows clients all thewonderful stuff we do for them every year, and this is how much itcosts. We do that also because you'll always get the competingbroker that will come in and say, “I can do all that stuff and Ican do it cheaper. I'll do it for 5 percent.”

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Well, how are you going to do that? Show me how. How does thatwork? So, at the end of the year we'll give clients their benefitsstatement laying out all we provide–tools, resources, everything.Here's how much it costs. Here is the investment that we're puttingback into your business.

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We're being transparent in what we're providing, and it'sreinforcing what we do for clients. They value this service fromus, and here is what it costs.

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Sam Friedman:

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Are you concerned that after investing a lot of risk managementresources into a particular account, another price-shopping brokermight jeopardize the renewal by promising a cheaper insurancepremium?

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John Turner:

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We've been in meetings where it became a competitive situation.We sat down with our benefits statement and said, “Okay, whatservice don't you want? We can make the price anything you want.You don't want this? That's okay. We'll take that cost out.”

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It's like buying a car. You want the Mercedes, right? Everybodywants to buy a Mercedes, but they don't want to pay for theMercedes. So, there are trade-offs.

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Sam Friedman:

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Even though our award program focuses on commercial insurance,what place does employee benefits have in your operations?

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W. Anderson Baker:

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It is certainly a revenue center for us, but it is more an extralink that accomplishes what all gurus would tell you–the moreclients buy from you, the less likely they are to leave. Benefitsdoes give us that much more opportunity to touch the client andmaintain contact with them.

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We find that our retention where we're writing both theproperty-casualty and the benefits is much higher than when we'rewriting just one.

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Typically, the introduction comes from the p-c producer, andthen we have people who will come in and take care of the benefitsside. We tried working with an outside benefits agency before andfound it to be a very awkward relationship, so it's all in-housenow.

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Jack Galloway:

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Barney & Barney also has a significant benefits operation.It's probably pushing 45 percent of our revenue, and it's clearlymore profitable than my commercial division right now.

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In California, all aspects of the commercial market aresoft–workers' comp is down 65 percent from the 2003 highs. So thecost of benefits is where clients are focused– it's the painpoint.

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Benefits also fit in well with our overall value proposition. Wehave worked hard over the years to provide our clients withinnovative products and strategies to help mitigate the escalatinghealth care cost we are all faced with.

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Through plan design, alternative funding, wellness programs,employee education and many other areas, we try and help clientsdevelop long-term approaches to rising costs and help them protecttheir most valued asset–their employees.

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David Becker:

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Benefits are about 30-to-35 percent of what we do. We runbenefits through separate producers. The consulting business hasgone through a similar transformation, where knowing somethingmatters, and just being a great salesperson doesn't work.

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You actually have to have people who are experts in what they'redoing, and benefits have become extremely complicated andexpensive, involving an enormous amount of federal complianceissues. So we keep that in a separate unit.

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We created our own biometric health risk assessment capabilitynationwide, where we can arrange to have all of your employees'blood work screened. We bought a predictive modeling softwaresystem that we run that through, as well as the claims to identifythe next set of people who are likely to be big claimants.

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Then we bring nurses and coaches to bear on that, and try to dosome early intervention–just as we would on a risk management sitebefore claims happen.

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We've got 25 nurses and five doctors on staff. We can helppeople get to the right places. We care. We can help clientsresolve claims issues. I think our clients are becoming more andmore appreciative of this as benefits costs continue to skyrocketand the pain of the p-c side has become less burdensome now.

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John Turner:

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Benefits play a very big part for us–it's a little bit over 40percent of our total revenues, and it continues to be one of ourcore growth drivers.

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Again, we have benefits producers as part of our team on theaccount. When we see a prospect, it's a JRD prospect–it's not justa commercial lines prospect. We pitch the account with atotal-solution approach.

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When we're out there doing risk assessment on the casualtylines, we're also doing that in benefits simultaneously, and we'llpresent a combined solution. Those accounts are going to becomemore institutionalized over time, which protects your businesslong-term.

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My background is benefits, so the key of our approach is, takewhat you've been doing in workers' comp and let me show you how Ican help you in the benefits side–or vice versa.

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You try to integrate their solutions as much aspossible–especially worker's comp and health benefits. If you haveissues in your benefits program, it could potentially spike yourworkers' comp claims.

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Sam Friedman:

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This is a people business, and you are all knowledge workers,making recruitment critical. To borrow a sports analogy, do youbuild through the draft, developing raw talent on your own, or doyou go after big-name free agents with established books?

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W. Anderson Baker:

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We're a smaller organization; therefore we don't have internaltraining programs, and recruiting is extremely difficult in NewOrleans right now after Katrina.

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We prefer to find young people who are plugged into thecommunity that we can bring up to our way of doing things, ratherthan hiring someone from another shop, where you have to break badhabits.

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We want self-starters. We want somebody who has certainly got apersonality, who can talk his way through the sales process and canmake acquaintances as he goes along. We do not need more pureservice people. It's the revenue-generators that we need to bringin.

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John Turner:

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We build from the draft, and we're lucky to have thesixth-largest university in the country now–the University ofCentral Florida, where 80 percent of graduates actually stay in theCentral Florida area. And then we have the University of Florida,which is 90 minutes away. So, we have a pretty good collegiaterecruiting base we can draw from.

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We'd rather hire somebody out of college or graduate school–oreven somebody who has been in the business maybe two or threeyears, or in a similar line of business like commercial banking.That way, we don't have to un-train bad habits.

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We look for student athletes for a lot of reasons. We work withthe athletic programs in those universities to identify potentialcandidates that we'll put through a rigorous testing and interviewprogram.

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We've had more success with student athletes because theyunderstand the concept of team. They have that self-startingmentality. They're competitive and they know how to pick themselvesback up when they lose–and they don't like to lose. That's where wefocus most of our energies.

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David Becker:

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We're still primarily Dubuque-based, and there's not a greatdeal of natural competitors to recruit from, so we almost have todevelop from within.

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We used to lament, like everyone in the industry, how hard it isto find and develop good people, but I take a different mentality.I think you just have to work harder at it.

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When someone says, “Dubuque” and “insurance,” that isn't exactlysexy, so you have to get out there on campus and put onpresentations. I participated in several of them, and we try tosend one of our senior executives to every one. We bought pizzabefore the group meetings. We took individual candidates todinner.

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They met our team so that once we went through the interview; wepre-sold what we were doing. We had a ton of success with that. Wemade offers to 14 college graduates in June, and all accepted. Onlya few had a connection to Dubuque before.

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We also look for some experienced recruits. We have a network ofheadhunters all over the country, and we have made them aware thatwe want experienced talent and we'll talk to anyone who has a goodstory. We've landed three really big impact-players in the last 18months from national brokers through this process.

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Recruiting is a lot of work, but it's paid off. It got us insome new niches that we didn't have, and added new capabilities toour agency. The free agents give us something we didn't know how togrow, and we build around them.

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Sam Friedman:

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Do you do much hands-on training once you have a draft choice orfree agent on board?

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David Becker:

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About 18 months ago, to develop our “capital between the ears,”we created a training program called “The Journey to Greatness”that focuses not only on technical education that we bring in-housebut also on sales training.

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We also do business skills training–we offer about 20 differentprograms in-house, whether it's how to use Excel, time management,how to give a presentation, how to write. We're trying to build ourpeople's capabilities so they're more effective.

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We also do, for every employee, a teamwork training programtwice a year. This year we had consultants come in and work withgroups of 20 and identify the biggest issues within departments,and they put action plans together.

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Next year, we're going to work on cross-functional issuesrelated to customer service. How do we, across departments, startto work better to solve what our customers are telling us are theirbiggest issues?

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Last but not least, for every manager and supervisor we have aleadership training development program. This year we do aquarterly session. We're trying to figure out how to grow all ouryoung people into insurance professionals. It's a struggle initself, but I think it's the right program for where we arelocated.

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Bio Boxes, with shots from Roundtable: