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Case History
Even though this agency felt they were very well automated, they also realized that there were areas they could improve on. The problem was they didn’t have time or resources to find these areas on their own. ICM to the rescue! The agency was looking at some very specific goals: grow their financial services, retain a general contractor’s market, and increase business without adding staff. The agency has 14 employees with 6 million in P&C business, and an additional 5 million in Life, Health, Employee benefits and the financial area for a total of 11 million. The agency thought they were about 80% automated with newer equipment, a full management system, T1 line for fast internet connection, departments organized by the office manager and accounting all done through one system. They weren’t sure that ICM could help them but were looking to improve any area that they possibly could. They had purchased a program to help them with marketing a few months back, and weren’t sure that it was a good buy. The program did not come with training, and seemed to be labor-intensive, relative to the benefits so far. They were offering some functionality on their web-site, but they wanted a detailed report on specific improvements that they could make. ICM spent the day in the office, talked to all employees, examined their workflow and did some research. In two weeks the recommendations were sent and a conference call was scheduled. The following are statistics:
Total time savings:
Total dollar savings:
Growth plan for additional premium:
Although there is no obligation to do so, the agency hired ICM to implement 11 of the recommendations. They felt confident in their ability to implement the others on their own, and they have.
There comes a time in an agency's growth pattern when the current management system just isn't going to handle everything the way the agency needs it to. The agency had come to this point when they called ICM. ICM was able to assess the agency's situation and recommend a new management system for them. They have three employees and 1.5 million in premium volume. The majority of clients are personal lines, with about 6% of their volume in commercial. The owner was interested in expanding marketing in securities, focusing on rounding out accounts, and utilizing automation in order to free up time to implement these marketing goals. He also wanted to determine if their current management system was functional for his agency. The CSR was spending 5 hours per week filing, 33 hours per week quoting, 4 hours per week typing letters. With the implementation of t-filing, they could cut filing time down to 10 minutes per week. They had tried t-filing, and it hadn't worked, because the current system just didn't have the logging capabilities required for t filing. With ICM's recommendation of a new management system, they will save a further 17 hours per week on quoting by having the comparative rater integrated with the new system. This allows only single entry of information for a quote, instead of duplicate and triplicate. Because the current system didn't have the letter templates the agency needed, the CSR's were spending time typing letters over and over. With the implementation of a new system, the letters can be set up to merge with client data, thus eliminating most of time spent typing letters needlessly. These three examples of time savings allowed ICM to recommend a marketing strategy for the agency based on the specific goals set out by the owner. Making the decision to switch to a new management system is a difficult one to make. In breaking down the numbers, ICM found that staying with the current system was actually costing the agency money, and the purchase of a new management system would pay for itself in only three months. Based on Mary Hauri's experience in the insurance industry, she was able to help. Because ICM is not affiliated with any software vendor, we feel comfortable that our recommendations are in the agency's best interest, not ours. Twenty total recommendations were made to this agency:
Total Time Savings to the Agency:
Total Potential Dollar Savings:
Total Potential Dollar Increase with Marketing:
Total cost to the agency to get this information:
Insurance Concepts in Motion received this letter from Gary Ascher of Western Insurance Services, Tomah WI and Sparta WI. Dear Mary, It has been six months since I contracted with you to do the initial assessment of my agency. It's been not quite five months since I began implementation of the plan designed by you to improve our automated workflow and to create other efficiencies within our office. Although we have not yet completed our plan, I wanted to give you some feedback. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the successes that we would have implementing the plan that you developed for us. Obviously, I believed that you had some good ideas and that you could improve the operation of our agency. That is why I accepted your plan and hired you to do the training necessary to implement the plan. However, I'm so accustomed to people making exaggerated claims, I had mentally discounted the projected savings. My implementing the plan that you designed for us, and hiring your firm to do the training, not only have we realized significant savings that meet your projections, but also you have helped us to position my agency for continued growth. Employee morale is at an all-time high. My employees have developed a new sense of pride in their work because they realize that they are operating in an efficient manner and that they are contributing to the success of the agency. Another thing that has amazed me is the breadth of the changes that you have recommended. When I first contacted you, I was expecting recommendations on improving our automated workflows. You have been able to assist us with training in many more areas including producer training. I'm amazed at your broad grasp of the insurance industry, automated workflows, marketing, sales training and many other areas. Throughout this process, I've accepted the fact that as agency owner, I have many strengths and weaknesses. By working with you, you have been able to fill in the gaps where I am weak such as automated workflows and training of customer service agents. That has allowed me to focus on my strengths, which include personal production and management of the agency. It's impossible for an agency principal to "do it all". By bringing in an outside expert like you, I think any agency owner would benefit. Even though we are more than two-thirds through our plan, I know that I will continue to rely on you in the future to help me to continue to make my agency a success. Please accept my heartfelt gratitude for all of the help that you have given me. Sincerely, Gary Ascher, President Western Insurance Services
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