Page 55 - The UnCaptive Agent

28 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

produce premiums greater than $10,000 to $20,000.
So currently, most small business is written by smaller
insurance agencies. And by smaller, I’m referring to
agencies with less than $1 million in revenue.
This market advantage for small agents will come
under its own set of challenges. Those challenges come
in the form of two relatively new competitors. The first
competitor is the insurance carriers themselves, who
have either developed their own direct distribution
channel, direct to client, or will do so in order to gain
more market share. The second competitor will be the
same kinds of online sellers of insurance that are making
inroads in the personal insurance business.
There are already online agencies focused on selling
commercial insurance in the United States, and it’s far
more commonplace in the United Kingdom than it is
even here. That doesn’t mean that the small local insur-
ance agency cannot be successful in small commercial
insurance. In fact, there is tremendous opportunity here.
But that opportunity lies in using the technology that is
increasingly available to agents to remove the drudgery
of the work like quoting multiple carriers—thus allowing
the agents to use their freed-up time to develop deeper
relationships with clients.
Should you decide to pursue building a commercial
lines book of business, you will need to find train-
ing and mentoring in both commercial products and
the commercial lines sales process to be successful.
The Certified Insurance Counselor™ program of the
National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research
is an excellent way of building product knowledge,
though it does require many days away from the office
and is fairly expensive for a new agency owner. Some
insurance carriers like Liberty Mutual, Travelers, State
Auto, and The Hartford offer producer schools. The