KMRD’s Double Threat

Customer service

As a brokerage, the partners decided to commit to matching hardworking companies that delivered meaningful services to their clients with underwriters that provide a reliable means with which to transfer risk.

Headquartered 20 miles north of Philadelphia in Warrington, Pa., the agency employs 20 individuals, including 8 commercial lines producers. The agency also has an office in Limerick, Pa., about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Although many agencies have more people who sell, McPoyle pointed out that KMRD's more limited sales force has a stronger support system. "Our approach was to build a strong backroom that would provide great customer service," McPoyle said, "and resource that room to get into the various details of our clients' culture, risk appetite, exposures, operations and unsolved issues."

From an infrastructure standpoint, the partners scrapped the traditional agency management model and instead gave employees better tools with which to work. These tools give employees more time to dig into risk management initiatives, including disaster recovery planning, business interruption analysis and mock OSHA audits. All of these actions fulfill the agency's mission statement, "Making a Difference by Managing the Cost of Risk."

KMRD delivers its service through its proprietary management system, KMRD XChange. This collaboration tool gives clients nonstop access to their own entire agency files, including loss information and analysis reports, insurance rating data and correspondence files. This unlimited access means clients can hold account managers responsible for completing and updating documents.

Trust is built from long-term client relationships, and is earned the old-fashioned way: without shortcuts. This core principle is exemplified through the agency's claims resolution process. KMRD employs claim advocates who reduce premium and the overall cost of risk by maximizing coverage on first-party coverages, and reducing average liability and workers' compensation losses. When submitting claims to carriers, the advocates prepare claims follow-ups and status updates (which include descriptions, expenses, rationale behind reserves, resolution strategies and time frame and suggest risk control initiatives), prepare management loss reports, communicate loss trends and follow up on any significant losses.

KMRD has found that its resolution process eliminates surprises when handling claims and eases clients' anxiety. Case in point: Just two weeks after acquiring KMRD coverage, a Pennsylvania boarding school experienced a fire in its maintenance and heating facility. Not only was the fire the most severe the school had ever experienced, but it occurred in chilly mid-November.

KMRD executed its emergency claims procedures and alerted its entire service team, sent two agency reps to the school with cameras and sent one representative to KMRD's office to prepare for the next day's meeting with school administrators. The school implemented its disaster recovery plan and immediately evacuated students to the gymnasium, arranged for temporary lodging in the gymnasium, ordered temporary boilers so students could return to their dormitories once the fire was extinguished and smoke cleared, and appointed one point of contact for the media.

At the next day's meeting with school administrators, KMRD outlined key partners involved in the claim, stressed the need to identify cause and origin of the fire to ensure complete coverage, advised on public relations and provided sample policy forms obtained during negotiation processes with the carrier.

The actual policy had not been issued as this claim occurred 2 weeks after the effective date. KMRD accelerated the process by providing the carrier's claims representative a copy of the sample forms as well.

Recruitment, retention and perpetuation

Seamless resolutions are achieved because KMRD only selects team members who can easily represent the agency's code of ethics. The code is placed on the back of each employee's business card:

• Integrity first
• Clients are the focus of everything we do
• Excellence is in the details
• We are continuously improving and learning.

Dietzel stressed that the agency finds employees through various channels and doesn't limit its search to only those with insurance industry experience. "We look for folks who are business people first," he said, "and also have the intellectual curiosity to absorb technical insurance and risk management knowledge."

McPoyle recalled how one recent producer hire had worked for a national payroll services company. This producer expressed frustration that his backroom could not execute on the products he sold, and thought he was making hollow promises to potential clients.

"Here's a guy who wants to do a great job selling, but also has the conviction and commitment to be great at customer service," he said. "Attitude trumps aptitude with respect to our initial evaluation of a potential employee."

New employees enter a training program lasting several years. Weekly training sessions include more than 100 coverage areas. New employees must master each one before working without supervision.

New employees meet with principals and executives, where coverage and policies are reviewed line by line to ensure the new employee understands how a policy is built and what the implications of a particular policy mean to the customer.

Mentors take new employees through claims management, approaches and strategies, better resolutions within the claims process, paperless workflows and efficient operating processes. Daily training sessions include "coffee talks" where the previous day's events are discussed.

McPoyle credits the training program with instilling a more precise agency knowledge base. "Bob and I come from a mindset that places great emphasis on training. We have moved it up a notch —to observe, learn and participate in the process in a real-world environment."

The agency's mentoring program pairs each junior producer with a senior producer and other high-level risk manager or risk executive.

There are three people on every account and a junior producer is unable to produce on his own for a period of several years. New employees work on existing accounts only with supervision.

"For many people, this can be frustrating," Dietzel said. "They were very accomplished in their previous careers, but now they can't sign a letter. We analyze what they were doing and help them to become even stronger. It takes time and commitment on their part, but ultimately everyone will incorporate their unique skills with the KMRD philosophy of making a difference by managing the cost of risk." This process takes the pressure off new employees because they have mentors who understand the burden and requirement.

Teamwork affects not only training, but compensation. Producers, account executives and claims coordinators are all compensated on both new and renewal business based on a profit and loss statement.

Besides training programs for new employees, KMRD also looks to the future with internship programs with local universities and high schools.

Interns assist with quality control and the review of property-casualty insurance policies, develop and analyze prospect databases, troubleshoot and review issues surrounding the document management system, pre-screen prospect lists and analyze and summarize insurance loss information.

At the Limerick office, a high school intern worked with the agency for one month as part of a school project. The intern attended sales calls and client visits, meetings with insurance carriers and underwriters. The intern received exposure to contact and sales management systems.

"Bob and I have been in this business for 18 years," McPoyle said. "We continue to meet executives, CEOs, owners and show them how we conduct ourselves. Judging from the comments we receive, I know we are doing something special here."