Sustainability Is Key In The Wake Of Changing Business Models

Sustainability is the name of the game when it comes to your benefits practice. Susan Rider, vice president of sales and operations at Preventia, walked through the steps of increasing practice sustainability by leveraging your practice’s human capital during a session held Monday at the National Association of Health Underwriters virtual convention.

Rider told participants that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, some agencies adapted to changing businesses models more quickly than others. “Your main goal for you practice is to remain nimble. You want to be able to pivot, not just create a quick fix,” she said.

The first step is to begin with a gap analysis that looks at the following:

• The needs of our people.
• What are we doing currently?
• What’s working?
• What needs improvement? Tools? Communication? Customer service?
• Is there leadership support for change?
• Is there strategic partner alignment to achieve our goals?

“You need to look at things such as what’s working, what’s not, and what tools and resources can you leverage,” she said. “Do you need to align with strategic partners or do you have the resources you need in house?”

The end goal in the process is to create a blueprint with actionable steps.

“You need to look at things such as outsourcing versus in-home considerations,” she said. “Are you hitting the right targets?”

Agency owners need to ask, what new ideas are people seeing? “Our conversations are changing,” Rider said.

Other questions agency owners must ask include:

• Have we strengthened our agency consulting capability for our future buyer needs?
• Have we lost accounts because we don’t have human resources services?
• Will we need to add staff or outsource services?

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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