Establishing that you are a better fit than the current broker requires having off-renewal conversations so as not to confuse the decision about hiring a broker/advisor with the decision for selecting the insurance products.
Sell off-renewal
To improve close ratios, move your sales conversations off-renewal. The renewal is about choosing insurance products, and a broker should be advising and guiding those conversations. Your goal is to be selected as the advisor and guide leading the process.
Asking a prospect to make two difficult decisions – changing carriers and changing brokers – at the same time is unfair to them and significantly diminishes your chance of winning the business. Of course, the prospect isn’t expecting to meet off-renewal, so you have to explain how it is in their best interest.
The talking points of this explanation are:
- Your renewal date is about choosing the insurance carrier and plan design.
- It is possible you are with the right carrier but have the wrong advisor.
- The first decision to make is which advisor can best advocate and strategize on your overall HR/benefits program, including your renewal. After you’ve made that choice, put him/her in control of the process.
- Underwriters are more comfortable seeing one advisor in control of the renewal discussion, which can make them more aggressive with their pricing.
- Handling the insurance is only one of many areas an effective advisor impacts.
- Those other areas are overshadowed/ignored too much at renewal, and significant opportunities to improve outcomes and reduce overall costs are missed, making off-renewal discussions necessary.
- By meeting with us off-renewal, we can give you a new insight into the multitude of ways an advisor can/should be impacting your business. We can also share how the right advisor enhances the overall value/ROI you get for from your HR/benefits investments.
- If we can’t make it completely clear that we can bring more value than your current advisor, we won’t suggest you make a change.
Insurance note
Even though you need to move your prospect conversations off renewal, that does not mean you avoid discussing their insurance needs. You still have the conversation about their insurance needs. However, instead of focusing on merely providing quotes, discuss the strategy you will bring to their insurance needs and explain how your plans will deliver improved results to the renewal process.