Industry executives have long maintained that insurance is a relationship business. This holds true even in today’s dynamic marketplace of hardening property-casualty rates, expanding producer responsibilities and health insurance reforms.

But to really leverage those relationships, they must be deep and limited. The connection extends beyond underwriters to their senior management, who are able to make decisions underwriters cannot in certain circumstances.

The intangibles of a relationship are critical—“Just being able to call up management and talk about the backroom office not being up to snuff or an underwriter not understanding an opportunity,” said Augusto Russell, partner at May, Bonee & Walsh Inc.

“You don’t want to throw the underwriters under the bus, but you want the ability to work with someone above them.”

Russell’s relationship with an insurer saved a client a huge premium hike in the wake of a significant aberrant loss despite the client’s sound loss control system. According to Russell, no additional loss controls would have prevented it from happening and he was able to help the client’s insurer’s senior executives understand that. The executives gave him the opportunity to change their minds because their strong relationship.

But agents must determine which insurers to build relationships with. It cannot be with all of them without sacrificing quality.

Likewise, carriers need to identify what agents they should invest in because insurers do not have unlimited resources.

The Chicago-based insurer CNA has been working this for the last 3 years, having taken several measures to improve relations with agents. But these efforts have shrunk its agency plant by 800 to 3,800 since 2011, according to vice president for producer and product development Roger M. Nulton, Jr.

“Before then, we talked about what we wanted to talk about rather than what our producers were trying to achieve,” said Nulton. “As a result, the insurer and agents did not discuss whether or how they could align their interests.”

Since then, CNA has trained its underwriters in relationship building. Before visiting agents, underwriters engage in pre-meeting planning to develop their meeting agendas and goals.

“This allows us to plan better with producers and coordinate with producers,” Nulton explained.

In addition, different CNA underwriters now coordinate with each other to eliminate duplicative discussion points.

Similarly, Hanover Insurance Group takes “a very limited-franchise view” of its independent agent channel since the insurer began focusing solely on property/casualty insurance a decade ago according to Richard Lavey, president of field operations and chief marketing officer for the company.

The insurer works with a total of 2,500 agents, though fewer produce most of Hanover’s business. Of that total, Hanover has appointed between 200 and 300 over the past two years.

Hanover encourages producers to be industry specialists by providing day-and-a-half-long educational seminars that cover critical information about several industries. The seminar also examines how to sell to buyers in industries including technology, health care and not-for-profits.

The insurer is also exploring the idea adding more seminars on additional industries.

Hanover is not an agency management specialist, so it does not attempt to direct agents on running their shops. What the insurer does do is support its agents by sponsoring studies that examining issues such as producer investment and perpetuation planning. Hanover also financially assists the Assurex Development Corp. fund, which aids Assurex Global agencies carry out their perpetuation plans.

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