Renewals are a crucial part of running an insurance agency. After all, retaining an existing client is more cost-effective than attracting a new one. You likely already have some ideas of how to boost renewals, but there is always room for improvement. Keep the following in mind to maximize your renewals and help your bottom line.
Use Renewal Season to Your Advantage
While you should be doing things that boost renewals all year long, this is especially important during renewal season. During renewal season, you need to go out of your way and put even more time into your regular efforts. Take the time to reach out to your customers. Gauge how satisfied they are and remind them that their renewal is coming up. Listen to them and take their comments seriously.
This is also the time to do coverage reviews. As you talk to your clients, make sure that the current coverage still works. This is the perfect opportunity for cross-selling or rounding out accounts. But it can also go the other way.
While it may seem counterintuitive to do so, be honest in your assessments if a client could reasonably drop some of their coverage or change something to reduce costs. Yes, this will hurt your income initially. However, it will do wonders in the long term when it comes to customer loyalty. It prevents the client from finding a better rate somewhere else. It also improves their satisfaction, which can lead to more referrals and positive referrals or reviews.
Communicate With Your Clients Early
As mentioned, you don’t want to leave your renewal efforts for renewal season. For the best retention rates, you need to reach out to your clients about renewals early. For example, send a message a few months before the renewal, letting them know that it is coming up. Invite them to schedule a meeting to confirm that their current insurance coverage still works for them. This will give you an opportunity to deliver personalized attention and a chance to upsell.
But don’t just limit the communication to that related to renewals. Reach out to clients every once in a while to build a relationship and trust. You can ask for feedback, give business updates, or send birthday wishes or holiday greetings.
Incentivize Client Loyalty
We mentioned that regular communications will build a relationship and client loyalty. But you can also do other things to boost loyalty. For example, consider making a referral program where the person referring and the person referred get discounts. Or consider giving long-term clients a discount. Or you can offer other types of incentives. For example, offer free workshops or webinars. You can also add value by offering one-on-one consultations to go over insurance options in-depth.
Use Tech to Your Advantage
Technology should play a key role in the renewal process as it will help with efficiency. After all, automating processes will typically save time compared to doing them manually. Take a look at where you could automate various actions, such as generating documents or collecting signatures. For example, Jenesis insurance agency management system offers renewal reminders complete with options and filters.
Allow for Self-service Renewals
Many clients will want to discuss their policies with you before renewing, but there will be just as many who are happy with their current coverage and don’t want to have to think about it. Come up with a self-service option so these clients can renew their policies themselves with minimal or no interactions with you. This offers convenience for your clients and saves your team time.
Optimize the Process of Renewals
In addition to offering a way for clients to renew their policies themselves, do whatever else you can to optimize the process. Remember that the easier it is for clients to renew, the more likely they are to stay with your agency. One of the best ways to optimize the renewal process is with A/B tests on policy campaigns, renewal emails, messaging, renewal notifications, and any other part of the process.
Use Data to Learn and Improve the Process
As with every other part of your insurance agency, you should be looking at data to gain insights into what works and doesn’t work for the renewal process. For example, Jenesis offers customizable reports that can give you meaningful insights.
Segment Your Clients
In addition to providing overall insights, you can also use some data to segment your clients. For example, you segment them based on their in-app behavior, their location, or their renewal rate. Then, create different strategies for each of these segments. This lets you focus your efforts and resources where they matter the most.
Conclusion
Renewal season is the time to focus your efforts on getting renewals and cross-selling. But you should also be doing things throughout the year to maximize renewals.