Retention is necessary to build and maintain a successful insurance agency.

Every agent knows that.

You know small boosts in retention will grow long term profit immensely.

You know it costs more to get new customers than to keep current ones.

And you probably know the pain of losing more policies than you wrote in a week.

You don’t hear as much about these two things:

1. Retention is a sales strategy – Every single thing you do to improve retention makes customers more likely to refer you.
2. Retention requires established processes –  Unless you decide exactly which methods in this article are going to work for you and establish formal procedures in your office to follow through, you will not see results.

I wrote this article so you couldn’t say, “I don’t know how to effect our retention.”

Here’s 34 ways to improve your insurance agency’s customer retention. No excuses, decide which retention strategies you like and take action!

Selling insurance is hard.

Really hard!

In fact, making a sale is so hard that agents often forget the most important part of building a successful insurance agency:

Developing a ROCK-SOLID relationship with every client.

According to web sites like Insurance Quotes, there’s no better time forge that relationship and boost the lifespan of your clients than immediately after the intital sale, but it’s easy to miss because it’s so exciting just to close the deal.

That’s why I recommend creating a formal Welcome Kit for new clients.

I think most sales goals suck.

That’s not totally true. I just wanted your attention.

(Hey, at least I’m honest.)

But I do think most sales goals are totally incomplete.

You see, most of us have a tendency to set goals based on the ultimate outcome.

I’ve worked with hundreds of ridiculously successful cobra insurance agents.

For years, I struggled to find one unifying characteristic – one trait or skill that was shared by all the successful agents and absent in the others.

Every time I thought I found it I’d meet another agent who, by his success or failure, would disprove my latest theory.

Until I finally figured it out…

Every successful insurance agent is not a great marketer. They’re not all good conversationalists. They’re not all organized, interesting, or hard-working. They’re not all well-written, well-read, well-mannered or well-spoken.

Insurance agents live and die by the quality of their employees.

Nothing is more important.

Not your location, your office, your marketing, your products, your search rankings, your signage, your website, your community, your networking, nothing!

You need the best people.

Good processes are the key to success in your insurance agency.

That’s why I put together a resource with the most important processes for successful insurance agencies.

I’ve included important considerations and helpful resources for each process below.

There’s a lot of information on this page so I also made a few links to help you get around:

Insurance Agency Processes featured on this page:

Where were you on Y2K?

I’m not sure where I was (which I’m sure is related to whatever I was drinking) but that’s not important.

I bring it up because that 22 year-old “kid” you just hired at your agency was asleep in bed.

He was in 3rd grade!

He grew up in a different world with different parents instilling different values and expectations. And if you want to get the most out of him, you need to understand how.

About a year ago, I wrote an article full of sales tips for new insurance agents and producers.

(You can read that article here)

It’s been one of the most popular articles I’ve written and I’ve received a LOT of positive feedback from new agents and trainers of new agents.

About a month ago, an InsuranceSplash reader asked if she could use the content in her company’s newsletter and I was more than happy to say yes.

What I never expected, though, was how amazing her version would be!

Want more sales from your producers?

Stupid question, huh?

Getting the most from your salespeople is one of the biggest roles of an agency owner but it’s also one of the most difficult.

I’ve worked with hundreds of agents across the US, and the ability to draw the most from their producers is a quality I’ve seen in the most successful agents.

Buying insurance leads is expensive.

I hear that from agents every single day and I agree 100%.

But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t play an important role in your marketing.

Where else could you spend money right now and be on the phone with an active insurance shopper within minutes?

What other marketing initiatives do you have that are so easy to track the results of?