PGI Agents,
The invite:
First and foremost, We want to invite you to a live broadcast of an agent panel discussion. (We will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary of our Black Hawk event by reuniting the SAME agency panel of super stars we had last year at the 20/20 vision meeting and Broadcasting them to you. You know these Agency super stars as Chris Long, Jeff Blichfeldt, Brian Brockman, and Steve Ehler…. I personally refer to them as “CL MO Maker”, “Big Blitch”, “BB Rockman”, and “Steve”)
Join us for a one year reunion and update on their successes, despite Covid and get in the details of “Exactly HOW they are doing it!?”
OCTOBER 14th at 1:00 PM MST!
(There will be plenty of give aways, So get your seat booked!) If you want to see what the first round looked like please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lauIkPE9bBY&t
The State Of the State:
2020 has been wild and given the elections right around the corner, fall and winter Covid unknowns, and other issues our nation grapples with; I think it is safe to say 2020 will close out with a few more surprises inline with what we have experienced so far this year.
Because of some of the unforeseen events of 2020 we have seen one big win for the Industry. Auto loss ratios have dramatically dropped as billions less miles are driven a month due to Covid quarantines.
This communication will attempt to detail the State of the state for Personal lines, YTD, and get into a few specifics as to how carriers choose to “Channel Manage” during this difficult time. (How a carrier manages their agency force during covid) This communication will build on my communications from earlier this year. Please refamiliarize yourself with the attachments.
Loss Ratios on the Auto product are aggressively dropping. As folks stay home more, the Proprty LRs are dropping as well (Despite another record setting fire and Hurricane season) Most of your Loss Ratios are dropping. This is an amazing year to see a record number of profit share agreements “get inline” with the potential of coming to fruition and impacting your agency’s financial bottom line with payouts.
Simply put. When we as Americans can’t or don’t desire to go anywhere, we drive a lot less, bump into others a lot less, give us time to update our homes, and figure out that we have water damage a lot faster (cause we are home to hear it happening); and that makes our carrier partners results look more desirable.
Some outcomes of this will be rate decreases, more competitors coming to play in the market, and the possibility of profit share payouts in more instances.
Rate Decreases: Some of you have not grown your agency’s client base for years. You have loved the huge rate increases year after year and have watched your net income increase not because you have grown, but because you have enjoyed the rate increases. Its time to change that mentality if you are guilty of it. For the foreseeable future the auto rate increases will be stagnate or be reduced. If you have not grown the number of customers in your agency in years, it’s time to explore how you do that or you will find your agency income sliding backwards.
More Competitors in the market: If Auto insurance companies are money printing machines for the foreseeable future. Investors want in. When investors get in, there is no shortage of products and low price points. (If you have not seen my videos on the Insurance spectrum, consider watching that now- see my signature block for links.) At the PGI home office we will negotiate for higher commissions in every interaction for you as we leverage our knowledge of the industry and the changing winds we have experienced before.
Profit Share Payouts: As the stars align these will be good times if the carriers don’t sacrifice profit for growth. As we understand their 2021 tactics we will negotiate appropriately for PGI agents as it relates to all forms of compensation. 2020 is shaping up nicely from a profit perspective, but some carriers still need to calculate “the great giveback” to their bottom line and how that will impact the final numbers.
The Carrier Approach to Channel Management:
As it relates to profit, many carriers are seeing their LRs dropping. Some sales teams are reactively enjoying the ride to profit, while others are still managing their agency channels aggressively, and rightfully so. (If they are seeing all LRs dropping and yours is still spiked or spiking, there is some significant cause for concern and worth a deeper dive.)
In essence two scenarios are playing out right now as carriers manage agencies:
- Carriers are content with their product, algorithm, price points, and claims resolution processes to generate profit
- In such scenarios they are looking at their agents and Agencies and asking, “If we are dialed in and the LR is still spiked at an agency despite the overall LR dropping across the board, is an agency behavior is causing that to occur? And is the agent going to fix the suspected behavior or not?”
- Is an agency demonstrating behaviors that are causing an elevated LR, despite the industries experience of dropping LRs, YTD?
- Are the clients of the agency demonstrating behaviors that cause an elevated LR to occur in the agency? And is the agent protecting the carrier from those clients.
i. An Example might be: Undisclosed Drivers
- The Carrier knows their product is not prefect and they are asking the agency for help to assure profit can be attained
- If a carrier knows certain risks are not priced correctly they might ask their agency channel to work within a defined process to assure they get what they what and limit submissions that they are less interested in.
i. Nationwide is a good example of this. They use the comparative rater often to tell you when they are interested and not interested by either returning a rate or not and asking you not to go to their website on risks where they did not return a rate.
At PGI we have one client, our agents. We have one stakeholder, our carriers. As we wrap up this year we want you to know that we are very serious in taking care of our clients ability to generate as much compensation as possible and bonus with many carriers. As such, we actively support our only stakeholders and use their provided data that can suggest which agencies have behaviors that might cost 100’s of agents the opportunity to bonus. If your agency is identified, ask yourself if there is something you could do better to underwrite and protect the 100’s of other agents in your family, so they don’t lose a bonus opportunity because of your actions.
We will be reaching out again with emails that will require action as agents are identified. Explanations or detailed actions will need to be very well understood.
Again we hope to have you join our Live broadcast on Oct 14th and we fully anticipate delivering great news about Profit Share payouts towards the end of Q1 2021.
Regards,
Young, Rex, and Shawn