Agencies Need To Strike Partnerships With Carriers To Grow In A Soft Market

Smart agents want to know what they can do to help grow their business in this soft market. Their best bet is to build stronger partnerships with their carriers.

Indeed, in the Deep Customer Connections' fifth annual “Ease of Doing Business” survey of over 8,100 independent agents, when asked, “What are the one or two most important things carriers should do to become easier to do business with?” agent comments reflected sentiments expressed by one survey participant: “Partnership is critical. Carriers must know [their agency partners], our objectives and motivation.”

Certainly partnership is a two-way street, and carriers arguably have the predominant role. But agents who participated in the survey suggested steps to take to seize the initiative to form business partnerships with carriers, leading to agency growth.

Those partnerships encompass five themes based on agent comments and our own experience at DCC:

o Understand each other's goals and aspirations.

Building a strong partnership with carriers requires much more than meeting once a year to set sales targets. It means understanding the most important concerns of both parties.

Some carriers are preoccupied with expanding product lines. Some are focused on underwriting profitability, while others are primarily concerned with building new markets. An agent needs to ask, what are my carrier's concerns?

Equally important to knowing what is foremost on your carrier's mind is being able to clearly share what is important to your agency with your carrier. Is your agency currently focused on a particular market segment? Working on bringing more people into the agency? Adopting new technology into your agency?

If you involve carriers in your concerns–while also working to understand their concerns–the carrier will be more likely to collaborate with you in using their resources to support your objectives.

Only by sharing your concerns and interests can you and your carrier set mutually beneficial goals and ensure each of you gets the most from working together.

o Identify and implement shared risks and returns.

A successful business partnership requires both parties to take intelligent, targeted risks to achieve specific positive results. Both carriers and agents must invest (time, dollars and other resources) and anticipate, as well as receive a good return (more and better business) for those investments. Partnership behavior is based on achieving mutually successful outcomes.

For example, an agency producer might invest time to make contacts and sales in a new market niche, while a carrier might develop the greater underwriting expertise needed to write that new business. Your agency could commit to a larger book with a carrier who provides leads and offers targeted sales training.

o Build mutual trust and respect.

Sharing and gathering critical information about goals and investments is insufficient if a producer lacks the skills, awareness and empathy required to build a genuine relationship grounded in mutual trust and respect.

Capabilities central to fostering relationships include listening (both to what is said and to what lurks unsaid between the lines); asking good and inviting questions; expressing empathy and understanding in response; and clearly articulating the agency's concerns, goals and aspirations.

While skills and knowledge can increase a producer's success, equally if not more important are the following personal attributes–honesty, integrity and empathy. No amount of skill without an earnest personal investment will earn the producer the results they seek.

A recent conversation with a senior vice president of underwriting at a large regional carrier reinforced this point from the carrier's perspective.

When interviewing potential underwriters, the executive said he paid particular attention to candidates' interpersonal orientations. He can teach the required underwriting knowledge and develop their interpersonal skills. But if a candidate lacks the ability to be aware of, and sensitive to another person, they are unlikely to be able to build the kind of partnerships that will lead to more and better business.

Building successful partnerships takes time, skill and leadership. There are three things a producer can do in their agency to foster effective carrier partnerships.

1). Make “building partnerships” a core responsibility for those who interact with the agency's carriers directly. These carrier-facing positions need to be carrier-centric as well as agent-centric.

2). Foster this mindset: either we both succeed or we both fail. Producers need to be strong advocates for both the agent and the carrier, ensuring that both parties win by having sustainably profitable operations.

This means being explicit and articulate about the agency's needs and what the agency needs more of (and less of) from the carrier, as well as explicitly asking what the carrier wants more of (and less of) from the agency.

3). Raise problems when they come up, rather than letting them fester. Just as friends don't let friends drive drunk, business partners address conflicts rather than sweeping them under the rug.

o Provide education and coaching in required knowledge, skills and tools.

Building partnerships requires a host of interpersonal skills (such as listening and being persuasive), technical knowledge (such as knowledge of the carrier's products and technology) and collaboration skills (such as problem-solving).

To be effective, and for that effectiveness to increase over time, the agency needs to train and coach, and have regular opportunities to meet and discuss with carriers their successes and challenges in fostering partnerships.

o Model partnership behavior.

Actions speak louder than words. When agency principals demonstrate a partnership orientation in their dealings with peers and subordinates as well as carrier personnel, this has a powerful effect.

The impact of such modeling is further increased when the leaders make demonstrating these behaviors a public and explicit goal. Openly discussing partnership strategy, sharing business and operational concerns, asking for and offering assistance, and inviting challenge not only teach the desired behavior but also demonstrate what leaders expect from others in the agency.