How is your Commercial Dept setup?

[Robin Deatherage]

I'm just curious to hear how others have their commercial dept setup.  For example, do your CSRs handle everything from A-Z on an account, including the marketing?  Or do you have a marketing dept and once it's bound it's turned over to the CSR?  Do you have technical assistants that handle things such as certificates, checking policies/endorsements, basic data entry, etc.?  Are your CSRs assigned to a specifc producer or are the accounts spread out some other way such as alpha? 

I don't really need specifics right now, I may later.  I'm basically just looking for a quick overview of the setup. 

Thanks,
Robin

[Andrew Carrick]

At the moment our CSRs do everything apart from sales, claims and accounts. There is a mixture of who does what for whom, i.e. Producers.

[Jeff Zylstra]

I think that you might find the CSR Profile, by the "National Alliance" to be helpful.  It segments agencies into premium volumes, geographic areas, and city vs. rural areas and then provides a plethora of information.   Since it provides pay and benefits information, the powers that be might not want it floating around.


http://www.scic.com/store/publications/csr-profile-unique-views-of-insurance-customer-service-representative-account-managers-and-account-executives.html

[Jan Regnier]

Being a small office - our CSAs handle everything except marketing.  The agents do review the contracts for certs but the CSAs do all the input and output... They handle policy input, EN, invoicing, audits, policy checking including noting forms that have been deleted and forms that have been added (renewal pols- we have spreadsheets each CSA completes for each pol type when reviewing renewal policies).

[Andrew Carrick]

Jan, I'm curious (yes in many ways), why CSA and not CSR? Confederate States of America? 

[brinkerdana]

In most agencies I've worked for CSRs were assigned a producer or producers or worked in teams.  Unless the agency was large enough, the CSRs did everything including marketing.  In some cases support personnel (receptionist, etc) were trained to do certificates.  The larger agencies had separate marketing, claims & bond departments.  In the case of separate marketing, the accounts were turned over at binding.

[Jan Regnier]

Jan, I'm curious (yes in many ways), why CSA and not CSR? Confederate States of America? 

Customer Service Agent....they are all licensed and COULD sell (they don't) vs Customer Service Representative. 

[Andrew Carrick]

Thanks, not a distinction we have here in the UK, although they have something similar in Financial Services (life, pensions, investments).

[Pegge]

The agency I work in now is totally different than any other I've ever worked with.  Each producer is a small business unit of their own under the main agency name.   Now that being said, each producer has their own set of procedures which makes life more than a little difficult if you're trying to cover for someone who is out of the office.   The producer I work with checks the policies, endorsements, audits, etc of his accounts AND bills agency billed items.  Yep, you heard it here - producer who bills..... 
I update the system, prepare apps for new and renewal business to market, deal with underwriters, proposals, certificates, endorsement requests, audit discrepancies - and all the flotsam and jetsam that goes along with accounts.  One hat I did give up is the 'Guido, collections' hat - it comes out of his pocket so he should handle it....     The producer I work with is a HEAVY new business producer so my life is apps, loss runs and all that goes with new biz submissions.  Wellll, I do give him the courtesy of getting the supplemental apps completed.... lol
Where I used to work, we had 2 sets of procedures - 1 for small business and 1 for mid and large accounts.  CSRs didn't check in policies, endts, audits but there were a couple of CSAs who did that and the CSR then billed and sent them out.  CSRs prepared apps for markets (new and renewal) and followed the quoting process all the way up to binding.  The CSAs sent out certificates unless they were very complex.    At one time we did have a marketing dept but lines started blurring and it was slowly dissolved.   
I've worked under mild procedures all the way up to such stringent procedures you had to read them constantly to make sure you were complying correctly (therein another problem) and now deal with no procedures - nothing, nada, zilch..... makes life very hard.   

[Pegge]

Here's a listing of the job titles I've had in my life as an insurance service rep (at least those I can remember):

CSR     Customer Service Rep
BAR     Business Acct Rep
BAM     Business Acct Mgr
CLAM   Commercial Lines Acct Mgr
SBAM   Small Business Acct Mgr
CLSAM Commercial Lines Senior Acct Mgr

Yep, went from a BAR to a BAM to a CLAM in the space of about a 2 yr period and for the same agency in the same position. lol
My title now?  We don't have them.  I know I've forgotten a few but there were times the titles changed faster than my hair style and color........ 

[DebAmstutz]

Pegge,  I think your producer should be a speaker at one of our chapter meetings-if we could get other producers there to hear him!  Maybe not on the billing portion of what he does, but the other stuff...wow!  It sounds like he does all that AND brings in new business too - what a guy!

[Robin Deatherage]

Thanks everybody!  I appreciate al lthe responses.

[Pegge]

Deb - he is a great guy to work with BUT with the volume of new business he quotes and the lack of some kind of procedures it can make life very difficult in the day to day world of a CSR.  He has a great 'referral' pipeline from current customers and other contacts so the new business pipeline is constantly flowing but there are no 'guidelines' to type, size, etc.......   

[DebAmstutz]

Maybe we should have a day devoted to "organization" that might resonate with some producers (and cause them to show up) and then spring a workflow class on 'em!  LOL