Post-Launch

One of the first advantages you’ll notice about the Independent Channel (IA) is picking a place to call home. You get to decide how to invest your capital and what your expected return should be. No greater capital investment at the beginning than your shop. You can invest in a storefront, or you can rent a Regis shared office space, but we are not a “work from home” organization. You’ll have mandatory requirements from LexisNexis as well as expectations from ASNOA. In addition, a physical location is required by LexisNexis, the company responsible for running your MVRs (Motor Vehicle Records) and C.L.U.E. (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) reporting.

Technology Selection

Website
Having a digital presence is no longer an option for insurance agents. Getting a website established as soon as possible should be a top priority. At the very least, as soon as possible you should get a domain (GoDaddy is a great place to start) and plan out when you'd want to launch your website. ASNOA has a few recommended vendors for website creation and maintenance, including Musselwhite Marketing.

Email
Email is your primary method of communication with not just ASNOA, but more importantly, with carriers. As such, a professional email is required, typically created during website development. Personal emails are not acceptable.

  • DO: name@yourdomain.com (e.g. john@insurance.com)
  • DO NOT: hotdog111@gmail.com

Phone
Your primary communication with your clients will likely be over phone, so having an effective phone system in place is both necessary and a great opportunity to create a good experience. Start thinking about things such as:

  • Investigate VOIP options (RingCentral, 8x8, Cisco, etc.) VOIP is more common than phone lines,and often allows you to also setup a soft-phone on your personal cellphone, and receive and make calls from your computer.
  • Setup a voicemail that is clear, concise, and professional. Do not use the default that comes with the system.
  • Make sure you keep your voicemail inbox from becoming full. Few things are more frustrating for clients than attempting to reach you by phone and being unable to even leave a voicemail.

This is the list of documents you are responsible for providing our agency services department to initiate the carrier submission process. The most important thing to remember is accuracy in the documents. All of your documents should have the exact same information written on them. This includes business name, any dba, address, npn, fein, etc. If any document doesn’t match the other, the carrier can reject the submission and we must start all over.

Documents will be collected via Content Snare. Please keep an eye out for the initial email. However, if you'd like to review what all these documents will be ahead of time, you can download this launch documents checklist to begin working on collection.

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Create a solid workflow

Servicing can be hard, but here are some tips that help with juggling all of the steps necessary.

  • Automate your workflows. Email reminders, policy renewal tasks, lead follow-ups, etc. can all be automated with software.
  • Define the roles in your agency if you have staff. Who is responsible for what aspects or clients?
  • Create an environment of reliable data. Being able to trust the data you work with is key to not doubling up on work.
  • E&O Proof your agency! Make sure you're documenting absolutely everything. Here's an article on how to best do this.

Utilize your Epic Reports!

  • Activity Report. This report shows what Open Activities you have for your current or prospective clients.
  • Cancellation Report. This report shows you policies that were cancelled either via download or by the agency.
  • Past Expiration Reports. This report shows you the policies that didn't renew in Epic. These policies need to be renewed. Check suspense for the download, request another download, or manually renew the policy. If it's a true non-renewal, then you can cancel it.
  • Policies in process submitted suspended report. This report will show you policies that were not issued in Epic. These policies will need to actually be issued.
  • Unassigned Suspense Items by Branch Code. This report will show policies that were downloaded into suspense with your agency branch but weren't downloaded into the actual client. They will need to be assigned out of suspense.

Utilize Software

  • Activities in Epic

    Utilize Epic's pre-built activities and add your own as a way to manage your daily workload. Whether it's adding a phone call reminder to your insured, endorsing a policy for a vehicle change or following up on a reinstatement, you will need to live in activities to assure your process is in place. Activities help give you reminders as well as track activity on your clients so that you can see what's been done. 

  • Attachments in Epic

    You can store all quote sheets, dec pages, emails, change requests, additional correspondence all under attachments. Never use a file cabinet again, you can thrive in a paperless environment by using attachments in EPIC. Retain signed applications and trailing documents under attachments in EPIC! Here's an article from our training team deeper explaining attachments and why you need to be utilizing this heavily.

  • Go Paperless

    Having to rely on physical documents is one of the primary ways that agencies continually slow themselves down. Utilizing either Applied Epic, a CRM like Better Agency or InsuredMine, or even utilizing good organization in a tool like Microsoft Teams is key to making sure your agency is operating fully digitally. This makes servicing easier, pulling up client information easier, and keeping track of all your resources easier.

Utilize Other Resources

  • Servicing Apps

    There are a number of apps developed in the insurance space that help your clients self-service. ASNOA works with a number of these Apps such as Glovebox, CSR24, and Applied Mobile.

  • Virtual Assistants

    Virtual Assistants can transform the way you operate and service your clients by providing you, the agency owner, with on-demand, pre-trained staff. Companies like CoverDesk have created virtual workforces of insurance-trained professionals that can help service the clients that you write.

  • CRM & Voip Systems

    Having a good CRM can take a lot of the manual work out of reminders, policy check-ins, and scheduling from you. Not only is it a constant touch-point with your client, but it helps you cater to multiple generations by giving you ways to interact with your clients via email, phone, text, and more. Always collect emails and mobile numbers for texting capabilities. Insurance is driven by personal relationships, but clients may want more digital options to manage business.

  • Service Centers

    Check with each carrier on whether this is an option or not. If it is, the service center helps free up a lot of your time to be able to focus on writing new policies instead of servicing existing ones.

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Create a good experience

Top Agents stay up on trends, they are active on social media, create videos, digitalize as much as possible and stay in regular contact with customers. Making sure that your agency is easy to work with, enjoyable to work with, and has the feel of a cutting-edge agency keeps your clients happy.

  • Create a strong onboarding. Clients like to feel like they've joined an agency that will take care of them. Get off to a good start by having a series of welcome messages and touch points.
  • Be prepared for claims. Some carriers download claims into Epic, other carriers reach out to notify you, other send a claims letter. Be prepared to help your clients through what's usually the worst insurance experience.
  • Cross-Sell where possible. People don't want to be sold to all the time, but they do like convenience. Bringing all their insurance under one roof is easier for you and for them.

As we get closer to launch, there are two key dates to keep in mind.

Planned Agency Launch Date
Early into your journey we'll try to establish the date you plan to open your doors and get started with your agency. The reason why this date is important to us at ASNOA is we will do our best to coordinate your trainings, contract dates and "Go Live" dates in your software to line up with that launch date. If or when that launch date changes from your original estimate, we'll update our timeline for you as well.

Contract
Before you're allowed to quote and bind business, you'll need to sign contracts with ASNOA. These documents will be sent to you by our leadership team and must be executed in order for you to be paid by our accounting team. Contracts can be signed any time that you are able to sign them (are not bound by any other contracts).

To see a full timeline of what your first 3 months of onboarding should look like, download this resource.

Download Onboarding Timeline Infographic
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Epic is a great system for managing policies, coverage, accounting and servicing. It’s not, however, a great marketing system. As an independent agent, it’s imperative that you get some form of process in place to send your clients basic insurance emails such as welcome emails, emails when their policy is expiring soon, birthday and anniversary emails, and more. Each of these acts as a touchpoint for you to stay top of mind, provide some personalized touch, and also make sure that they don’t forget who their insurance is through.

InsuredMine

InsuredMine is a software platform designed for insurance agencies and brokers. They offer a comprehensive suite of tools that help these professionals streamline their operations, enhance client engagement, and improve sales processes. InsuredMine's services include policy management, client communication, analytics, and marketing automation, all aimed at optimizing the insurance business workflow.

View all our Marketing Partners

Post-Interview Questions

Once you've gotten appointed with a carrier, here are things that you should ask the carrier because these are things you need to know in order to be successful. Knowing your carriers inside and out is crucial to your success as an independent agent, since being able to work with various products and get the most out of them is your core value offering to a client.

Commissions, Costs & Quoting

  • Can you provide me a current commission schedule?
  • Are there any additional bonuses available at the local level?
  • What type of additional compensation is available if I remarket my old book after the my non-compete is up?
  • Are there any additional MVR costs?
  • Are there additional costs to use the service center?
  • How do I ensure I'm getting your most competitive quote?
  • Are there specific rater defaults or settings I should use?
  • Do you have any cheatsheets or guidelines you can give me to ensure I'm getting the best quote?
  • What is available a la carte vs. what is required as packaged products or discounts?

Education & Training

  • What kind of training is available, and where can I access it on my own time?
  • How should we keep in contact during the onboarding process?
  • How do I schedule check-ins or trainings if I need them?
  • Should I call, or email you?
  • Do you have a scheduled timeline for onboarding?

Marketing

  • What kind of marketing resources are offered on the portal?
  • Is there a local agent listing that I could be added to online?
  • Is there any free social media content that I can use?
  • Do you have any co-op money available to help me market my agency?
  • What kind of co-op or cost sharing programs are available, and how do I qualify?
  • Are there any producer or marketer courses that you offer?

Support

  • If there is a technical issue with your agent portal, who should I contact?
  • Do you have a service center that I can take advantage of?
  • What is the contact information for your underwriters or service center?

Utilize Other Resources

  • Servicing Apps

    There are a number of apps developed in the insurance space that help your clients self-service. ASNOA works with a number of these Apps such as Glovebox, CSR24, and Applied Mobile.

  • Virtual Assistants

    Virtual Assistants can transform the way you operate and service your clients by providing you, the agency owner, with on-demand, pre-trained staff. Companies like CoverDesk have created virtual workforces of insurance-trained professionals that can help service the clients that you write.

  • CRM & Voip Systems

    Having a good CRM can take a lot of the manual work out of reminders, policy check-ins, and scheduling from you. Not only is it a constant touch-point with your client, but it helps you cater to multiple generations by giving you ways to interact with your clients via email, phone, text, and more. Always collect emails and mobile numbers for texting capabilities. Insurance is driven by personal relationships, but clients may want more digital options to manage business.

  • Service Centers

    Check with each carrier on whether this is an option or not. If it is, the service center helps free up a lot of your time to be able to focus on writing new policies instead of servicing existing ones.

Home Best Practices

  • Understand your carriers Coverage A binding authority
  • Be aware that what breed of dog they have might affect the rates
  • Not all carriers are willing to take trampolines and pools, and even those that do may have different rates for those coverages
  • Know the comprehensive UW guidelines by carrier
  • Know the infrastructure of their house — roof age, plumbing type, and how recently updates were done can affect rates
  • Talk to your carrier rep about their inspection process
  • Use emails and input where you can, not just to e-sign, get the client set up to online billing and download the carrier app for self-service

Home Best Practices

  • Understand your carriers Coverage A binding authority
  • Be aware that what breed of dog they have might affect the rates
  • Not all carriers are willing to take trampolines and pools, and even those that do may have different rates for those coverages
  • Know the comprehensive UW guidelines by carrier
  • Know the infrastructure of their house — roof age, plumbing type, and how recently updates were done can affect rates
  • Talk to your carrier rep about their inspection process
  • Use emails and input where you can, not just to e-sign, get the client set up to online billing and download the carrier app for self-service
Apex Agency Banner

ASNOA Recognition & Rewards Program

Apex Agents are ASNOA affiliates that have demonstrated outstanding performance and success in their agencies. This recognition program offers our agencies an opportunity to celebrate important milestones along their agency journey, and offers tremendous rewards along the way.

  • ASPIRE Agency: Greater than $500,000 in revenue
  • ASCEND Agency: Greater than $1M in revenue
  • APEX Agency: Greater than $2M in revenue

Please review the attachment here.

Applied Systems Section

A Year with Applied Epic

Congrats on making it to about a year in Applied Epic! Now that you're about a year in, there's a lot to make sure you're refreshed on so that you can keep the system up to date and make sure you're utilizing this tool the best that you can. Applied Epic is a powerful program if you know how to get the most out of it, but it can also feel clunky if you're not familiar with all the features or not using it the best.

Some things to pay attention to now that you're entering your second year with Epic are:

  • Updating your staff list and important need-to-knows about managing licensed staff
  • Attachments: Why use them and how to add them
  • Downloads: Why they’re important and help with any issues
  • Past Expiration Report: Helpful come renewal time to make sure that renewal downloads are coming through
  • Pr/Br Report: If you have Profit Centers for you staff, we want to make sure that everything is entered properly into Epic to ensure that you are getting paid in a timely manner.
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Account Rounding

Now that you're an independent agent, you've got a wide array of carriers and insurance options. Though P&C is the core of most people's book, make sure that you're always both cross-selling to your existing clients (making sure your home clients also have auto) and diversifying your book.

As an independent agent, it's best to begin selling more than just personal lines insurance. Diversifying your product offering helps you build stronger and more lasting relationships with clients by addressing a broader range of insurance needs. It also allows you to increase your revenue streams and mitigate risks associated with fluctuations in market demand for specific insurance types.

Some of the benefits to account rounding are:

  • Blocks competitors
  • Maximizes the lifetime value of the client.
  • Creates exit barriers

Examples of account rounding are:

  • Adding new coverages to existing policies
  • Increasing coverage on existing accounts
  • Cross-sell between lines: offer commercial to personal accounts or suggesting life insurance to anyone.

If you are only focused on Personal lines today, ASNOA can help open the doors to selling Commercial lines, Life Insurance, broaden your specialty markets and even Medicare supplements.        

Carrier Appointments Resource Kit

Your Carrier Resource Kit

A new tool you want to make sure to be utilizing is your "Appointments" tab in the Agent Portal (found on the left-hand side). Clicking here will open up all of your carrier appointments according to our database. This is a place you should get used to utilizing, as there's both a lot of information you can utilize currently and more features that are in development by ASNOA.

This section is bi-directional, so you will see updates that ASNOA has typed in and updates you've typed in!

  • Contact Information: Save information about your carrier rep here so that you know how to reach out to for each appointment.
  • Required Information See information necessary for this appointment like the code, the states it's available in, whether it's shared or not, downloads, and more. All maintained by the ASNOA team.
  • Additional Info: Information that you can fill in yourself, such as MVR Charges, commissions, any notes you want to fill in and more.

In additional to this Carrier Resource Kit, you'll want to pay attention to the Carrier Announcements under the Resources tab. All carriers that you have appointments with (direct or producer) have frequent updates and they'll all appear in date order in the carrier announcements section for you to filter through.

Other updates that will be coming soon include attaching documents, commission schedules, and filters.

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Building Client Relationships

When you first start writing business, it's important for you to establish the relationship you'll have with your clients for two reasons.

  • Firstly, the primary difference between an independent agent and a captive agent is that you should be able to handle all of their insurance needs. With the right mixture of carriers, you should be able to quote and bind any coverage that they need. The key to this will be developing that relationship with your clients so that they know to come to you.
  • Secondly, if you're using any shared codes, chances are "Allegiance Insurance Services" or "Agency One" might appear on their dec pages, depending on the carrier. If you don't have a good relationship with your clients where they know their insurance is through you, how to contact you, feel comfortable asking questions, etc. then that might lead them to be confused. Make sure to get ahead of this if you work with any shared codes or producer codes.

A good place to start is by having a solid Welcome Kit for your clients! A good welcome kit has three components to it.

  • Physical Welcome Kit: When your client is in your office, and you're writing their first policies, a physical welcome kit is a great thing to have. Putting together a kit that has your agency's most important info, their documents, and a few flyers to upsell is a great way to get them introduced to your agency.
  • Email Welcome: If you have a CRM (which you should!), then one of your most important automations will be a welcome email to new clients. Your welcome email should have your information, your agency's information, their policy information, and information about how they can get their most important documents like declaration pages.
  • Two Week Check-In: Thought not quite as important as the intial welcome email, having a two week check-in email to make sure they've found everything okay and have no more questions is a crucial touch point to make sure your clients feel like you're paying attention. This is also easy to automate, but especially if you're just getting started having a reminder to give a phone call at two weeks is a great touch as well.
Download Sample Welcome Email
Conference Banner

ASNOA Sales Conference

The ASNOA Sales Conference (ASC) is hosted on a bi-annual basis. This conference is free to ASNOA affiliates and has affiliates from all over the country. We strive for an event that yields thorough professional value while offering our affiliates a chance to unwind and network with their peer group. The event will include speaking slots from our sponsors, classes, a full tradeshow, and time to network with ASNOA staff and other agents attending.

In the alternating “off-years” between the ASC, “Happy Hours” are hosted at regional locations. These events are aimed to build and maintain relationships between local agents and the ASNOA Executive Team.

Rater Efficiency

Why you should be using your comparative rater:

A comparative rater is essential software for independent insurance agents to compete in the marketplace.

  • Save time and increase number of quotes- prefill capabilities and access to all carriers at once while allowing you to provide more than one quote option.
  • Boost productivity- quote more easily to allow you and your staff to be as efficient as possible
  • Improves your value prop- easily cross-sell and provide a one-stop-shop experience.
  • Improve agency insight- you can run reports to show quote activity to better track and manage new business and renewals
  • Improve retention- your rater is an excellent retention tool. With prospect data initially saved, you can go back to market and find them a new carrier and keep that client happy in your agency.
  • Overall improved close ratio

Underwriting Famility

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do you have a system in place to easily retrieve all important carrier information?
  • How familiar are you with the underwriting guidelines for each carrier?
  • Can your staff quickly find access to any carrier specific information?

If you cannot confidently answer any of these questions, it is your time to get organized. By now you should have met with each of your carrier reps and explored all training opportunities within the carrier portal and have a full understanding of each product available.  There are endless resources available to you within each carrier portal and in the ASNOA LMS.

Create that plan, find a safe storage space, have a shared digital library of all carrier specific documents.

Your clients are putting their full trust in your recommended coverages. Stay up to date as this information can change annually.

CRM Image

Why you need a CRM in your agency:

As an insurance agent, you understand the importance of building solid relationships with your clients. However, handling these relationships can be a daunting task. You should be more efficient and effective than ever before to keep up with the competition. Your CRM will allow you to streamline the customer experience by providing tools to help improve communication and track sales.

Benefits of a CRM:

  • Increased in new business leads
  • Increased hit-ratio
  • Unlimited unique touchpoints
  • Cross-sell opportunities
  • Win-back campaigns
  • Monthly newsletters
  • Birthday Emails
  • Loyalty Emails
  • Renewal review opportunities
  • Increased retention
  • Contact management
  • Marketing automation
  • Google reviews
  • Forecasting
  • Texting Capabilites
PL Rater

PL Rater Upgrades

Most Insurance agents are using their own unique data capture quote sheet. Although this method is highly successful, we do have some additional solutions to help you think outside of the box and grab that data quicker. We really need to lean on today’s technology to allow us to do business more efficiently in such a competitive space.

Here are a few of our recommendations to help streamline the data capture process:

  • EZLynx has partnered with Fenris which will allow you to pull in drive and vehicle information per risk, at a small fee.
  • Watch this short video on the EZLynx PURL feature along with the Consumer Quoting tool
  • Reach out to ASNOA if you would like to learn more about some additional vendor opportunities available to help grab that data faster.
  • Additionally, our quote sheets are all available in the Resource Library of the Agent Portal

CL Rater

Whether you are brand new to writing commercial or are a veteran commercial writer, there are rater options for you on the commercial side too.

Bold Penguin is our Preferred solution for small business, making it easier for you to sell commercial lines. Bold Penguin provides industry-leading products for heloing agents generate leads, provide quotes, compare rates and eventually bind new commercial business.  https://youtu.be/JyzXNRndNRo

Nationwide Brokerage Solutions (NBS) - have you tried their appetite search?

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VA's Service Centers - A Servicing Arm to Your Agency

Are you growing? Need help Staffing? Can’t find a CSR? We have some solutions for you!

Virtual Assistants (VA’s): Are a growing trend in the industry. VA’s are trained to do back-office tasks that would normally take up too much time and cost money if done by an employee. They are a remote member of your agency personnel. The cost to hire a VA varies and depends on the responsibilities you give them.

Benefits of Utilizing a Service Center:

  • Focus on sales, less time spent on service and mundane tasks
  • Support customers with existing policies and include coverage enhancements
  • Acquire additional lines of business
  • Retention initiatives
  • Proactive sales outreach
  • Retain at risk policies
  • After hours - nights, holidays, and weekends
  • Concierge service

Carrier Service Centers: Service centers will differ carrier to carrier, but they all have a similar offering.

Are you using the agent portal

The Agent Portal - Are you getting the full value?

The agent portal is more than just your place to access the playbook and manage your appointments. Are you getting your full value out of it? There are multiple other modules that you can use to keep track of your agency, including:

  • The Resource Library, which has nearly all documents that ASNOA shares with you, including sample licenses, guides, how-to's, and more. You can access this on the Resources page.
  • The Carrier Announcements section, also on the Resources page, has updates from all the carriers that you're appointed with, including contests, notices of changes, free resources, and more. You can pin the ones you want to pay attention to most.
  • Your Monthly Reports and your Monthly Invoices are both stored on the Operations page, saving your the time of having to store them all locally. You've always got an archive.
  • The Ticketing Form allows you to create a detailed ticket that instantly goes to the right team to tackle the issue. Tickets help us resolve your questions much faster because they make sure we get all the right information and it gets to the right hands.