It's that time of year when agents and brokers are running around like crazy trying to tie up the loose ends on all of their Jan. 1 renewals – and, hopefully, some new business, as well.
Renewals provide you with an excellent opportunity to help grow your book of business by adding additional lines of coverage with your current clients. Employee benefits no longer include just health, life, dental, and disability. There are a number of other products out there for agents to sell, such as critical illness, accident insurance, long term care, and prepaid legal.
Diversification: More important than ever
With health insurance commissions being affected by the medical loss ratio guidelines now in place, it is important for agents to diversify by adding additional employee benefits products to their lineup. When going through a client's renewal, make a note of the products that aren't currently in place with that client, and think about whether it makes sense to add any of those products. Develop a checklist of every product that you offer, and keep it in your client's file. Every time you open the file, look at that list and see what you don't have in place with that client, and if now would be an appropriate time to add one of those additional lines of coverage.
For example, let's say you have a current client's group health insurance plan renewing, and because of the increase, they have decided to change their current hospital copayment to a deductible in order to control the escalating cost. This would be an excellent time to discuss an accident plan and/or a critical illness plan that would provide employees with a value-added benefit that could help them pay for their new hospital deductible. Or maybe you have a client with an aging workforce. This would be an ideal prospect for a long term care plan. There are always opportunities to add lines of coverage with current clients; you just have to take off the blinders to notice them.
The no-cost solution
What's great about a lot of these products is that they can be offered on a completely voluntary basis, so there is no additional cost to the employer. So, even though many employers are looking for ways to reduce their employee benefit cost, there are products that not only provide value for both the employer and employee, but do so without increasing the employer's cost.
During these trying times, we need to continue to diversify and add new products to our portfolio. Adding additional products provides you with the opportunity for new revenue streams, and will help you continue to grow your business in these uncertain times. So the next time you open up a client's folder, ask yourself, "How can I help this client by adding an additional line of coverage?"
Tim Tracy Jr. is the vice president of Gerard B. Tracy & Associates. He can be reached at tim_tracy@tracyassoc.com.
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