In an effort to build a unified brand, a leading commercial insurer needed to understand the nuances of various insurance lines through the eyes of its sellers – insurance agents and brokers.

As a large insurance company that writes multiple lines of insurance, our client found that business units were beginning to operate separate and distinctly — leading to inconsistent interactions for commercial clients.

The client needed to truly understand the motivators of agents and brokers, focusing on how they place client business and what factors are the most important in this process.

An insights program was established to take a deep dive into the insurance agent and broker processes for selecting which insurance carriers they will place business with, based on their specific client needs:

5 business units examined

Qualitative focus group sessions to gain the voice of brokers/agents

Quantitative validation study to prioritize attributes of placement

MaxDiff and Penalty/Rewards analyses were conducted to understand which attributes were table stakes and which were differentiators for carriers.

A clear map of the business placement process allowed the client to build their own internal systems by aligning strategies of each different business unit explored.

This includes:

Aligning internal stakeholders
Building consistency in the sales process
Prioritizing marketing efforts

The cumulative findings across the five business units helped to paint a clear picture of the firm’s position with its intermediary partners, how to showcase competitive differentiators and the best method to support agencies of every size.

Impact

The findings helped the client revisit their operational processes and lower the cost to serve the market. Additionally, they were able to reposition go to market efforts, allowing them to increase their share in the market and foster topline growth.