MGAs Urge Retail Agents To Be Players In Sports Market

Managing general agents who specialize in sports and recreation programs say the sector could be a source of new business for independent agents, who often ignore it because they fail to see its potential, or believe they won't be able to find a market.

“I would suggest agents should go where others aren't. There are plenty of prospects that aren't high-profile,” said Lou Valentic, chief marketing officer for K&K Insurance Group Inc., a managing general underwriter in Ft. Wayne, Ind.

While agents may desire some kind of professional sport team or large amateur sports association for their book, the fact is they can look in their own backyards “for local associations, sports events, high school or college business,” Mr. Valentic noted.

Don Kasper, who recently retired as director of marketing for Tucson, Ariz.-based R.B. Jones, an MGA affiliated with Burns & Wilcox, said retail agents should look to cultivate association relationships.

Successful agents will work through such sporting associations to cultivate sponsorship affinity programs–a good tactic for developing business in this niche market instead of relying on one-on-one insurance programs, said Mr. Kasper.

Michael Dean, owner of Francis L. Dean & Associates–an MGA in Wheaton, Ill., specializing in sports and recreation–said one strategy for generating prospects and markets in the sports and recreation sector overlooked by many retail agents is the Internet.

He said Web technology can help agents find more unique products and locate markets to place unique sports-related risks that might come their way.

“We made the investments and spent a significant amount of time upgrading our system so agents can find markets on the Internet and link it to other sites,” said Mr. Dean. “We created a site specific to retail agents rather than direct marketing”–www.fdeanagents.com.

He said the Internet will help reduce expenses and increase a retail agent's capabilities, while also removing geographic boundaries that may have inhibited some agents from finding markets in the past.

One piece of advice Mr. Dean offers retail agents is that they never tell a client they don't handle risks from the sports and recreation sector. “There are a lot of outlets that they can turn to, especially in today's soft market,” he noted.