Cross-Selling Your Way To Success

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Sometimes brokers work so hard to obtain a new client that they don’t continue to solve that client’s insurance needs after the initial sale is made.

We’re talking about you, property/casualty agents and health/benefits brokers who aren’t working together to provide a full range of solutions to their commercial clients.

Billy Bridwell, vice president of employee benefits with Keystone Insurers Group, presented a session on “Organic Growth Just Across The Hall” during the National Association of Health Underwriters annual convention.

“The insurance industry is notorious for being poor at rounding out accounts,” he said. “We’re not doing enough cross-selling between benefits and P/C for our commercial clients.”

Bridwell works with P/C agencies to help their representatives sell benefits to commercial clients with whom they have existing P/C relationships.

Even though a P/C agent and a benefits broker may be working within the same agency, Bridwell said, there is a hesitancy for one to get the other involved with serving the same client.

“There’s a mentality of ‘don’t mess up my relationship with my client,’” he said. “But in reality, there’s already someone else selling benefits to that P/C client and that someone else is a stranger. Why not open the door to someone from your agency serving them?”

The age-old challenge facing agency owners is the lack of cross-selling results within their agency model, Bridwell said. The “team” doesn’t always work like a “team,” but like a bunch of individual silos growing “their” books of business and renewing “their” clients.

“How do we fix that? Through building a team culture, building trust and developing subject matter expertise,” he said.

After an agency overcomes the “silo” hurdle, it can create an ideal team model to achieve organic growth potential, Bridwell said.

“The bottom line is that someone is going to offer your client these risk solutions, so why not someone from your agency?” he said.

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at Susan.Rupe@innfeedback.com. Follow her on Twitter @INNsusan.

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