Personal Lines Remarketing

[Robin Deatherage]

Hi all.  I was curious if you had any set guidelines about when you remarket a personal lines account?  I know the usual trigger is when the client calls in complaining about a renewal increase but are there any pro-active guidelines to this you are using?  Any thoughts and comments on the subject would be appreciated.

[Alice Mooney]

Robin
Because our major carrier downloads renewal quotes, we run a report to show current and renewal premium.  If the renewal premium is over a certain % increase, it goes to a remarket team to first find out why the increase, then to quote with other companies to keep the business in the agency.
Not sure if any of your companies download renewal quotes, but they may help with this.

[Lynne Desrochers]

Robin, we use the comm log to see what should be remarketed. We tell it to notify if it's over a certain dollar amount and that is distributed to the account managers.

[Jan Regnier]

Robin, we use the comm log to see what should be remarketed. We tell it to notify if it's over a certain dollar amount and that is distributed to the account managers.

We do the same.  The Comm Log works quite nicely for this purpose.

[Robin Deatherage]

Yes we are using the exceptions on the comm log also which is helpful.  The staff is saying they are having to remarket more than they used to and that's where they spend the majority of their time, so I was also wondering about other pro-active steps that we might consider.  I'm going to work with them on their process to see if there are ways we can streamline as well. 

[Jan Regnier]

Um....getting the companies to quit raising their premiums would be the most effective way to whittle that down!  I love it when a Co rep comes in and tells about the "rate reductions" they are taking....however it is NEVER in our area....

[Robin Deatherage]

Um....getting the companies to quit raising their premiums would be the most effective way to whittle that down!  I love it when a Co rep comes in and tells about the "rate reductions" they are taking....however it is NEVER in our area....

Yeah I hear ya.  And don't you love the "value proposition" speech they give you.  Yeah yeah yeah, we know all that, and we do all that, but.....the price has to be there too.     

[Jim Jensen]

I feel like we've been remarketing our PL policies for about 4 years now, maybe more. Pretty tired of it. Not much we can do, except try to make it as efficient as possible, as long as HO rates keep getting double digit % increases. This came up with a rep recently and she responded, "I thought our rates were holding pretty steady this year". "They are, however, the other carriers are taking good-sized increases, just like you did last year and the two prior years!" They tend to get their blinders on too and not see the stress we're feeling dealing with this from multiple carriers on a rotating and contstant basis.

[Bob]

I think most all agencies in this same boat and a lot had to do with economy and people trying to stretch their dollars.  One of the 1st places people turn to is insurance and why so many rewrites all over.   Add to that carriers who change UW or rates keeps most all pretty active rewriting.   In our remote offices due to changing fire zones, often looking for new market as the non-renew.   Past few years fires been issues all over remote regions of California so many trying to get off so that too plays in.  While it's added work, retention is easier than replacing lost business.  Just my thoughts. 

[Jim Jensen]

I think most all agencies in this same boat and a lot had to do with economy and people trying to stretch their dollars.  One of the 1st places people turn to is insurance and why so many rewrites all over.   Add to that carriers who change UW or rates keeps most all pretty active rewriting.   

Indeed confluence of economic downturn and constantly increasing rates has been the worst. Can't count how many times we ran through the replacement cost response script from clients calling asking why we increase the dwelling coverage when their house is worth less than a year ago. Was really fun with the few who said "I talked to the assessor's office and they tell me you are over-insuring our house..."