New Grange Brand To Benefit Agents %amp; Customers

Grange Mutual Insurance unveiled a new branding campaign today designed to improve its promotion efforts and make online contacts by customers easier.

The Columbus, Ohio-based personal lines insurer showed off a new logo and online features during an online press conference. Phil Urban, president and chief executive officer for Grange, said the redesigned face of the company positions the company for continued growth and puts it in a position to help its independent agent base to deal with the direct writer promotions.

"We have worked very hard to position Grange for continued growth," said Mr. Urban of the close to 75 year-old company. "Our independent agents are under fire everyday with billions and billions of dollars of direct writer advertising and we need to make sure that our brand does a good job of supporting them and position them as value added insurance experts from a consumer's point of view."

Mr. Urban said the new brand comes after three years of research and development.

The new brand will involve television, direct mail, print and radio advertising with a launch in 16 cities in nine states to tell agents about the new brand campaign.

Among the unique advertising campaigns will include utilizing local agents in the company's advertising.

For ease of doing business advocates, who are pushing both independent agents and carriers to develop and use advances in technology to expand the efficiency of internet features, Grange's new branding campaign will offer customers more Web based features.

Mike Buzek, vice president of ease of doing business and Doug Sharp, vice president of agency relations, explained that the new site will aim to provide customers with access to features to control their experience while giving agents a greater online profile with their customers.

For agents, Grange will co-brand with the agency on the company's Web site when the customer seeks information about their account. Customers will have access to information about their insurance accounts 24 hours a day--seven days a week, to obtain payment and claims information, print an insurance card, or contact their agent with an e-mail.

Carol Drake, vice president of marketing said agents will begin to have access to the company's new features beginning today, including the company's new Web based features.

Grange insurance, which primarily writes personal lines insurance in 13 states boasts $1.3 billion in revenues through a network of 15,000 agents.