iTunes | 
Commercial Lines Is an Accommodation
On Point with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.
Peter and Rick spoke with Steve Brooks, an independent agency owner in Westlake Village, Calif. who is a proponent of personal lines and social media as a marketing tool.
While many agencies sell a mix of commercial and personal lines, Steve is very focused on upscale personal lines accounts. He started his firm from scratch 20 years ago, and is 98% personal lines.
Personal lines is stable, with higher persistency than commercial, especially in an economy where businesses are moving their insurance, or going out of business altogether. And the personal lines book is worth more to an agency, Steve says.
Traditional media—such as TV ads and direct marketing—don’t work as well as they once did for personal lines, he maintains. He likes social media—like Facebook and Twitter—for reaching a higher-end clientele. “It’s hard to measure ROI on social media sites,” he says, “but the intangible references are priceless.”
And he likes to work relationships. Commercial lines agents refer preferred personal lines to Brooks because they take the line seriously and want it handled well. “You can’t wait until business slows to start doing this,” he says. “You need to be doing it all the time.”
Loading ...Post a Comment
Featured
-
Lobbyist Norwood Looks Ahead to 2012 in Legislature
John Norwood, principal of Norwood & Associates, has a career in political work dating back to the early 1980s, and he’s one of the state’s best known lobbyists in the insurance and financial services sectors. Norwood talked about workers’ compensation, and other legislation and regulation matters that the insurance industry will face in 2012, including [...]
-
Norwood on Workers’ Comp
John, principal of Norwood & Associates, has been an lobbyist for insurance and financial services sectors across several decades. Norwood offered a focused looking at the all-important workers’ compensation issue, and he gave his thoughts on health insurance exchanges. In fact, Norwood forecast that 2012 will rank as an important one when it comes to [...]
-
Lobbyist Norwood Analyzes Consumer Watchdog Legislation
John Norwood is one of California’s best known legislative advocates for the insurance and financial services sectors. Norwood spoke to the Insurance Journal about legislation and regulation, including a proposal by a consumer advocacy group that would establish prior approval for healthcare insurance and would make major changes to auto insurance and homeowners insurance in [...]
Popular
-
Entrepreneurial Technologists
This year the Entrepreneurial Insurance Alliance (EIA), sponsored by MarketScout, named Vertafore and Risk Metrics, as winners of it 2011 Entrepreneurial Award in technology. Vertafore’s WorkSmart and Risk Metrics’ Insurance 360 technology products received recognition from the EIA as being some of the industry’s most innovative concepts in technology. Each year, the EIA receives hundreds [...]
-
How Insurance Distribution Is Changing
Retail and wholesale brokers face the challenge —and opportunity— of redefining their relationships and value proposition in today’s changing insurance distribution world, according to Glenn Hargrove, president, MarketScout Wholesale, Dallas, Tex. In this interview from the recent Western Insurance Agents Association’s Insurance Industry Roundtable in California, Hargrove outlines the value proposition of agents and brokers [...]
-
Interesting Times in Medical Liability
The medical liability market continues to perform well even as the nation struggles to implement health care reform. Robert Allen, senior vice presidents at Torus Insurance, says many health care institutions are implementing new strategies to be successful in today’s health care reform world. In this interview with Insurance Journal’s Andrea Ortega-Wells from the annual [...]
Random
-
David Page, QAS / ISOTech 2003
Interview with QAS’ West Coast General Manager, David Page, at ISOTech 2003
-
Getting to Know You through Social Media
When we first talked to Cindy Donaldson, Director of Marketing & Personal Lines Sales for Founder’s Group about a year ago, the company was in the early stages of their social media journey. We thought it would be fun to go back and see how the agency was progressing. According to Cindy, their goal [...]
-
Industry Can Count on Slow Economic Recovery in 2011
Insurance Information Institute Chief Economist Steven Weisbart gives his economic outlook for 2011.
- Copyright © 2012 Wells Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.