If a client asks their property-casualty agent about what lifeinsurance policies are available for sale, one might often draw ablank stare. The same could be said if a p-c customer asks aboutother types of financial products and services–whether healthinsurance, retirement planning, long-term care coverage or thelike.

Yet, as a growing number of producers can attest, there are bigbenefits to cross-selling such non-p-c products–and not just tomiddle-market personal lines clients. Many of the most successfulcommercial agencies, sources told National Underwriter, are doing asubstantial business cross-selling life, health and financialplanning solutions to individual business owners and high-net-worthindividuals, with p-c accounts opening the door.

Thus, it's no surprise that carriers on “the other side” of theindustry are eager to do business with their p-c agencycounterparts.

“When you cross-sell products, customer satisfaction andretention rates go up and client acquisition costs go down,”according to Tom Houle, a vice president at Wilmington, Del.-basedNationwide Financial Network. “The inherent advantages aresignificant–a fact that we're promoting across our entiredistribution network.”

Patricia Borowski, senior vice president at the NationalAssociation of Professional Insurance Agents in Alexandria, Va.,said that “today, it's absolutely essential to avail clients ofmultiline products. A growing number of our [p-c member agencies]are entering the life and health space. And the younger the agencyprincipal, the more likely it is he or she will be engaged on thelife and health side.”

The potential for producers entrenched in the p-c world toenhance their competitive positioning and revenue by adding lifeand other financial services to their portfolios has not been loston the Hartford Financial Services Group.

The Connecticut-based carrier launched an initiative inSeptember to tap its nationwide-channel of 10,000 p-c agents forsales of pension products, group benefits and individual lifeinsurance to business owners. The effort focuses near-term onhelping appropriately licensed p-c agencies grow revenue from salesof these products, including 401(k) retirement plans.

“Many carriers have attempted to cross-sell through p-c channelsin the past,” said Jack Kennedy, director of the cross-sellinginitiative at Hartford Financial. “What has situated us for successis the focus we're putting into rolling out our initiative instates where we have a substantial p-c agency presence.”

Those states–California, Illinois, Texas and Virginia–accountfor much of the company's existing commercial accounts business,which totals more than one million p-c policies, spread among780,000 small and midsize business clients.

To help those agencies expand their portfolios, the company isarranging for training and licensing of p-c reps to sell life andother financial services products.

The company, noted Mr. Kennedy, is also availing these agenciesof its “assisted sales model.” Home-office specialists will aidagents by prospecting for clients, developing plan recommendationsand joining producers in meetings with clients.

The Hartford's cross-selling initiative puts the company inleague with traditional multiline carriers–Allstate, MetLife,Nationwide and State Farm–that have long offered one-stop-shoppingfor p-c and life and health products. But these carriers have alsobeen upping the ante in recent years by boosting educationalrequirements for their producers.

Since 2001, for example, State Farm has mandated all newrecruits to be Registered Representatives–earning Series 6 licensesto sell variable universal life insurance, variable annuities and401(k) products. Some 1,500 of the company's 17,000-strong fieldforce now offer these products, in addition to traditional p-clines.

Like Hartford Financial, State Farm lends its producers trainingand administrative support through agency field offices, as well asinternal sales support specialists to assist with executivecompensation, business, retirement and estate planning needs.

Where advanced planning expertise is required in high-net-worthcases (generally involving clients with $1 million-plus ininvestment assets), the company's agents can call on expertsavailable through a partnership with The Phoenix Companies inHartford.

“Our agents generally fill the demand [for p-c] products first,then pivot over to the nondemand [life and health] products,”according to Susan Waring, executive vice president and chiefadministrative officer of State Farm's Life & Health Company,headquartered in Bloomington, Ill.

“We expect agents to take care of all new business they bring ineach year by at least having life discovery conversations withclients about their financial services needs. To talk about whatthe client is concerned about if he or she should leave this earthtomorrow is a nondemand conversation,” she added.

“That's when an agent needs to get up close and personal withthe customer,” said Ms. Waring. “Those advisors who do itsuccessfully–who can elicit from clients what's most important intheir lives–enjoy deeper and more long-lasting relationships.”

Small-business owners–independent contractors, franchisees,professionals and the like–are an integral part of State Farm'sexpanding customer base, which remains largely focused on themiddle market.

Of the 27 million-plus households that State Farm serves,approximately 1.8 million are high-net-worth clients. The rest,according to Ms. Waring, have incomes ranging between $20,000 and$75,000 annually. The average life insurance death benefit is$140,000, she noted.

Nationwide, too, connects its 4,000 agents to a field force ofsales directors who provide point-of-sale training and educationfor financial products directed at business owners and seniorexecutives.

These products include insurance-funded business plans, buy-selland nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements, Section 162executive bonus arrangements, and employee stock ownershipplans–better known as ESOPs.

At MetLife, licensing in both p-c and life and health productsis required to participate in the company's fee-sharingarrangements.

Rudy Loney, vice president of agency distribution-financialservices for MetLife Auto & Home in New York, said thefee-sharing is particularly valuable in cases involving executivecompensation, employee benefits and succession planning, as manyagents lack the requisite expertise.

When a specialist is needed, MetLife will partner the agent witha counterpart at the company's New England Financial unit. MetLifealso fields a network of certified managing general agents who canassist with the marketing of long-term products to smallbusinesses.

Mr. Loney said that approximately 25 percent of the 4,500independent agencies affiliated with MetLife have at least oneagent with a Series 6 license, issued by the National Associationof Securities Dealers, to sell variable life, variable annuitiesand other investment products.

Most of the agencies also have life and employee benefitsdepartments to handle small-business planning needs, while about 90percent of their estimated 20,000 agents have a p-c license.

The multiline focus, added Mr. Loney, is key to enhancingrevenue and client retention.

“Agents increasingly realize they must do more to diversifytheir income stream by writing other products,” he said. “And themost obvious areas in which to diversify are life and otherfinancial services. Also, product diversification helps withretention by insulating the independent agent's existing customerbase.”

Nationwide's Mr. Houle agrees. “If you're my p-c agent, andsuddenly I want to shop, it's real easy to bolt to another carrierif you've only sold me one product,” he observed. “But if I havetwo or three products–and you take care of everything–I'm lesslikely to unbundle all that and go shop elsewhere.”

For those p-c agents looking to diversify into life andfinancial services, and vice versa, the transition won'tnecessarily be a smooth one because the two specialties involvedifferent types of sales, multiline players warn. Property-casualtyis highly transaction-oriented, they note, while life and financialservices are more process and relationship-driven.

For many, the life and financial services sale can be morechallenging. It demands of the producer a detailed exploration ofthe client's financial situation, goals and objectives, as well asan ability to motivate clients to act on recommended solutions.

Conversely, life and financial services professionalsconsidering the addition of p-c insurance to their portfolios haveto learn new insurance terms and concepts.

On the other side of the coin, p-c producers must learn thestory-telling or other motivational sales techniques that are sowidely used in the life and financial services space to help closethe sale.

The hurdles entailed in integrating such disparate sellingparadigms have not, however, stopped insurance agencies from takingthe plunge. But unlike many producers affiliated with multilinecarriers who have to be proficient in both product families, manysmall independent agencies employ specialists who concentrate onone area.

One example is the Logan Lavelle Hunt Insurance Agency, aLouisville, Ky.-based firm with seven owners/principals. Of thethree who focus on sales, one deals strictly with p-c products, thesecond with life insurance, and the third with wealthmanagement.

Stanley Logan Jr., one of the principals, said the firm'scross-selling efforts during the last 18 months yielded annualizedrevenue of $7 million. Property-casualty sales accounted for about70 percent of the total, with the balance going to life sales andwealth management services.

“We tell clients, 'we want to be your total insurance solution,not just your p-c salesman or your life and health salesman,'” saidMr. Logan. “People are very receptive to this message.”

Richard DeBlasio, an independent agent and principal of DeBlasioInsurance and Gaspee Benefit Planners in Cranston, R.I., agrees.Initially a p-c agent in his father's agency, Mr. DeBlasio launchedan independent financial services firm (Gaspee Benefit Planners) inthe late 1980s, and then integrated Gaspee with DeBlasio in2000.

Since the merger, Mr. DeBlasio points out the company has grown350 percent and is on track to achieve a long-held goal to become a$15-to-20 million practice generating revenue equally from p-c andlife/financial services sales.

Mr. DeBlasio ascribes the firm's robust expansion to a strictadherence to its cross-selling philosophy. That strategy, he added,has worked particularly well when interfacing with business-ownerclients and their key executives.

“Quite often in p-c sales, you gain a great deal of knowledgeabout business owners' financial services needs and how much valueto attach to the [insurable] risks they incur,” he said. “That'skey to transitioning to the life side of our practice because wecan recommend life insurance as a way to preserve assets for theirowners and their families.”