RISE is a benchmarking report that was designed to help agents take action. While there are many surveys and reports available in the insurance marketplace, most reports represent agencies in many different marketplaces that vary greatly from each other. Things like the products and coverages offered in one area, the risk factors, average premium volume, compensation rates, productivity rates all can vary greatly when you consider agents in Florida vs agents in Michigan. When you aggregate data that varies greatly, those differences impact the benchmarks making them difficult to be applied to any particular agency’s situation. The RISE report is focused on providing deep insights by state, by size of agencies in the state, by regions within a state, and for the fastest growing agencies in the state in order to help agents make informed decisions about their agencies. By utilizing the data that we have gathered from our agencies we are able to provide Relevant Insights that our agents can use for Strategic decision Execution – R.I.S.E. All insights that are provided in the RISE report are in the aggregate.
The Importance of Networking
We know that one of the most valuable parts of any insurance event is the opportunity to meet and network with peers. Just this week, many agents were talking about some of the most impactful moments in their career, and 8/10 times it was a time that they met another agent that has positively impacted and changed their career. Networking is so very important because you share so much in common with your peers, and the opportunity to learn from each other is far greater that with any other group of people. Times are different and networking is tricky given these times. Agents meet in various ways – community meeting at their local chamber, carrier meetings, industry meetings or through their involvement at OIA at our annual meeting, NextGen, peer groups or many other volunteer opportunities, and now we are all doing our best to meet virtually.
Action from Insights
When agents get together, they discuss all kinds of things – How is business going? Who do you write for? What is your experience with – carrier? Are you focused on personal lines or commercial lines? Do you have a particular niche? Are you part of any network? Are you hiring? Even though these conversations are 1:1, often times they can cause actions such as:
- consider adding a new carrier
- look into joining a network
- explore developing a niche
- consider hiring or changing sales/support approach
We believe in he power of numbers and know that by adding deep benchmarks to these kinds of conversations, we can help agents to continue to learn from each other in a much more meaningful way that will lead to even more informed actions.
Enhancing Networking Insights with Data
While in-person conversations can never be replaced, the information you gather from those conversations with each other can now be enhanced with aggregated data insights covering the following topics:
- Carrier strategy
- Product line mix
- Productivity metrics
- Compensation
- Generational health
- Growth factors
By adding data insights that represent over 86% of agents in Ohio we believe that data will certainly enhance these networking conversations and help agents make data-driven decisions. By aggregating the data that we have, we can tell you what XXX% of the agents in Ohio have for their product mix, or that 73% are growing organically. We can also tell you the information that is not often discussed between agents:
- Average compensation is for CSRs and producers in our state and by region within the state.
- Productivity benchmarks
- WASA
- Spread Ratio
Data-driven Decisions
Agents as entrepreneurs are faced with making many decisions throughout their careers. They include:
- What carriers should I represent?
- What customers should I focus on?
- What technology should I invest in?
- What should my staff makeup be?
- What expertise do I need to grow my agency?
- Where should I focus my efforts geographically?
These and many more questions are ones that agents face, and as your trusted resource we want to provide as much data and insights that we can to help them navigate those decisions. The insurance marketplace is changing fast, so now more than ever it is important for you to have the relevant and actionable data insights available that will help inform those decisions.