Tough Market Makes Cross-selling Vital

In this environment, cross-selling is vital for brokers. Many of the most successful brokers today look to provide their clients with a full property-casualty solution, including loss control, plus employee benefits and executive insurance.

The client benefits from this effort, because having one broker handle multiple lines facilitates coordination, administration and billing, making life simpler.

Successful cross-selling starts with building a strong relationship by winning and keeping trust. Your client or prospect must feel that youre concerned about their needs and that you can give them good advice.

To win that respect, you need broad insurance and risk management knowledge. While you dont need to be an expert in every area, you do need to know enough to ask the right questions to build credibility for yourself and your organization as a full-service brokerage. Once youve done that in the initial meeting, you can bring in technical experts later if needed.

When meeting with a client or prospect the first time, I usually start by going over their commercial property and net-income loss exposures. Then, I ask if they would like me to review their liability risks. From there, we can segue into workers compensation.

That begs the question: What about coverage for employees that goes beyond workers comp, that can satisfy employees 24-hour needs when theyre injured or become ill outside of work?

That question brings health, disability and dental insurance into the picture.

Employers today are struggling with high insurance costs. If you, the agent, can show the clients and prospects that you can offer a creative solution that can save them money, theyll be willing to listeneven if youre not an employee benefits specialist.

Theres a real benefit to the client for having the same broker handling both p-c and employee benefits. In many companies, the risk manager or insurance buyer handles p-c while the employee benefits manager buys health insurance. This can impede coordination of claims involving both workers compensation and health insurance. By ensuring coordination, the broker can help mitigate losses while simplifying administration.

Successful cross-selling begins with asking about the clients needs, even if you are brought in as a specialist. For instance, when I submitted bond quotes for a financial institution, I asked about their health insurance. The insurance manager said he was happy with the dental plan but not as satisfied with the health plan and would like to get a proposal.

Another prospect, an insurance buyer for a healthcare organization, said he was pleased with his broker, except in one area: medical malpractice insurance. He did not feel he was getting enough attention. Sometimes cross-selling means meeting a niche need.

An agent needs to look at the property, net-income, liability and personnel loss exposures of his or her clients organization to uncover overlooked opportunities. A small or medium-sized company might be driven out of business if the president or top salesperson were to die or become permanently disabled. The solution is key-person insurance, which is often neglected by both benefits and p-c brokers.

Key person life or disability insurance is insurance that is bought by a company on the life of a key executive, with the company as the beneficiary.

By filling this gap, the alert broker can meet a crucial need for the client, strengthen the relationship and earn a handsome commission.

Loss control services provide a natural cross-sell opportunity. With the tight insurance market, businesses and nonprofits need to take steps to reduce their losses and make themselves more attractive risks to increasingly picky insurers. Inspection and safety engineering services can be provided as part of the insurance package or separately for a fee.

Surprisingly, many sizable companies arent getting necessary loss control services today. When they were buying insurance from traditional carriers, they received the services as part of the insurers package. But now, companies with captives are buying reinsurance instead, and reinsurers dont provide loss control.

The broker can step into the breach and provide this vital service. To do so, the brokerage will either have to develop and staff its own in-house loss control department or have a relationship with a consulting firm.

Speaking of reinsurance, thats another cross-selling opportunity. When a client sets up a captive, instead of saying so long, the broker can continue to play a valuable role by placing the clients reinsurance.

Successful cross-selling requires you to be a generalist. Your knowledge has to be broad enough so you can talk about a wide array of issues. Each client has specific, unique needs. If youre broad enough, you can hone in on all their needs and ask questions to create interest. By showing that youre knowledgeable about all the risks an organization and its employees face, youll win the clients respect as someone he or she can truly rely on to give excellent advice and implement it effectively.

Ellis J. Wilkerson, is vice president of sales, marketing and account management with E.G. Bowman Company Inc., a commercial insurance brokerage and loss control consultant in New York City. He can be reached by e-mail at ewilkerson@egbowman.com.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, January 20, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.