Bob Screen Insurance

Many marketing agencies would try to sell you an expensive CRM software package, possibly sell you a quick bit of training on the system and then leave you to it and with little benefit.

A small broker in the South West asked me to provide them with a review of their business strategy.  This already successful business had 4 distinct sectors of the business:

• Commercial broking;
• Personal lines account;
• A small, single product scheme facility; and
• A building society agency.

From an initial analysis of income, costs, resources and management time, it was clear that there was a significant disparity in the resources employed versus return between the business segments.

Recognising that, at the time, they didn’t have the core commercial lines experience, this major high street broker asked me to develop a commercial insurance strategy for them to enable them to develop into a major commercial player.

Having been involved in setting up a number of major direct to consumer insurance businesses, we have the experience to add value in most business areas, including:

Do you have affinity business at the moment and need to develop it or looking to get into the affinity market now?  Either way we can help in a number of areas including:

Somewhere in excess of 90% of new products developed are ultimately unsuccessful and often the development of a new product is expensive relative to other activities in the firm. Consequently there is a great deal of wastage in the development of new products.  So you want to give yourself the best chance of success and not spending time and resources on products that will ultimately fail.  Having a set out and rigorous (but not complex!) development process can help.  Broadly the stages in a process could be:

Internally you will have some strengths and a few weaknesses.  The market will present some opportunities and well as a number of threats. With your marketing strategy you’ll need to determine how to maximise your strengths to take advantage of opportunities as they arise while looking to minimise your weaknesses and guard against the inevitable threats.

The task is to recognise those influences on your business and build a detailed marketing plan designed to implement the resultant strategy.

Do you know exactly who you expect to buy each of your products?  Excellent, then that’ll make the task of attracting those potential customers to you.  If you don’t have that clear understanding of your potential customers then you’ll end up missing out on a volume of potential clients that will never find you and, equally spending money, time and effort attracting enquiries from people that are unlikely to buy from you.

How well do your customer communications represent your business? Whether we’re talking about your letterheads, renewal invitation letters, brochures or other literature these items that your clients and prospects will see most, they are your shop window. 

With the market becoming ever more competitive and development of bigger brands through networks and consolidators, a broker’s brand, it’s identity and what it stands for is surely more important than ever.  Brokers need to give their client’s reasons to use and continue to use them and provide areas of differentiation.