Brought to you by The PIA Partnership and its member companies

Improving the profitability of their personal lines book of business has never been more important for agencies than it is today. This is why PIA agent leadership along with participating insurance companies are working together through The Partnership and have created our new deliverable for professional independent insurance agents.

This year we are offering phase one of the deliverable.

At the heart of the deliverable are calculators which have been created using Microsoft Excel, ensuring ease of access and adaptability for agencies to assist them in closing the gap for growth and profit.

These tools are designed to help agencies project and plan for new business growth and profitability on a 5 year basis. Agencies can also use these tools to calculate projected auto and homeowner premium and commission by customer type – comparing various ways in which their own retention rates, premium rates and commissions factor into agency profitability.

Since results from these calculator tools are not static, agencies can create “what-if” scenarios and improve their bottom-line results by adjusting factors including improved retention, increased sales goals and ramping up account-rounding activities.

This new tool from The Partnership can help provide any agency with the ability to:

• Plan for growth and profitability.
• Quantify the benefits from account rounding.
• Evaluate customer opportunities across all of your carriers.
• Compare retention, pricing and commission by line of business
• Create a 5 year revenue projection based on sales goals.

Follow the appropriate link below to access the Closing the Gap – Growth & Profit website:

• PIA members: Visit the Closing the Gap – Growth & Profit website.
• Agencies appointed by Partnership companies: Visit the Closing the Gap – Growth & Profit website.
• Other agents: To visit the Closing the Gap – Growth & Profit website, you will need to become a PIA member. Learn more about PIA membership and join today! Or visit the Closing the Gap – Growth & Profit promotional website to learn more.

Next year we are creating phase two of the deliverable.

Phase two of our new PIA Partnership deliverable will be providing you with toolkits to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be. These will be offered via online learning, PIA state associations and PIA Partnership companies.

Here is a preview of some of the areas we're considering:

• How agencies make it happen:
• Guidelines for success
• Case studies
• Success stories
• Customizing the approach
• Staff buy-in – seeing the big picture
• Staff buy-in – your part in this
• Mini-calculators for agency staff
• ROI & profitability – a comprehensive review
• Customer types – identifying & quantifying
• Customer types – specific strategies for growth & profitability
• Regular customer communication
• CSR support: Workflows, activity tracking & scripts
• CSR support: Identifying cross-selling opportunities & ex-dating
• Are you offering a quote or making a proposal?
• How customers perceive value
• Value – not just the lowest price
• Getting the reports you need from your management system