Crafting Your Insurance Dream Team

One item that always frustrates me is when insurance agencies lower their standards and maintain a sub-par insurance team. As an insurance owner, leader, or manager, I’m here to tell you – you do not have to put up with a team that is lower than your standards. Yes, hiring is hard, but so is keeping people who aren’t right for the team. You get to pick your hard.

In our new Agency Ascend Leadership Training for insurance agents, we address exactly how to set clear expectations, hold the team accountable, letting a team member go, and hiring new team members. 

Let’s walk through these main topics. 

Setting Clear Insurance Team Expectations

Communication is a basic human need. We all want more of it and we all want to be better at it. It takes an adult hearing something 22 times before they remember it. So all too often we aren’t communicating enough. Sending an email isn’t always the best way to communicate. 

Here are some signs you need to increase communication:

• No one can recite the agency’s goals 
• Everyone is using outdated documents
• No one knows where to find procedures
• When you ask questions, everyone says, “I didn’t know that…”

To improve communication and set clear expectations, make sure you:

• Have 1:1s with your team
• Hold team meetings
• Put everything in writing
• Follow up with the team
• Inspect what you expect 
• Don’t make or take excuses

Holding Your Team Accountable 

Your insurance team needs accountability (don’t we all!). Many agency owners avoid it, fearing that everyone will walk out. If you want your insurance dream team, you need to hold people accountable. 

Winning teams, military, and winners in general, all appreciate a team that has the same standards. When you look the other way and don’t hold people accountable, everyone will slip and not hit their potential. 

Accountability is a cornerstone of every great team, and it’s a leader’s natural duty to enforce it. If your team has been without accountability for a while, restoring it will take time and consistency.

Letting a Team Member Go

Terminating an insurance team member is never easy, but it’s something that every agency leader has to do at some point. Your job is to protect the agency and the entire team; keeping an underperformer hurts everyone. 

Termination should not come as a shock to the person losing their job. If done correctly, they should have experienced:

• Addressing poor performance in 1:1 meetings
• Verbal warnings
• Written warnings
• A performance improvement plan

By the time you need to let someone go, they should already know it’s a possibility. This gives them a chance to find a better fit elsewhere and lets you handle the termination professionally. Remember, letting someone go should be a brief conversation—serious but quick. It’s a necessary step for insurance agency leaders.

How To Hire in Insurance

If I had a nickel for every time an insurance agent told me it’s hard to hire someone, I’d be writing this from my private plane. Yes, it’s tough. 

At APP, we have to find people willing to travel across the country, share our beliefs, and have the skills to coach agencies – that’s a difficult hire. In insurance, we need to realize that if we can’t find the perfect candidate, we can train someone for the role. All it takes is a great attitude and a willingness to learn. 

Anyone can learn insurance. Stop searching for a unicorn within five miles of your office who already knows your management system and has carrier experience. Instead, focus on how you can develop a great insurance team member. 

If you want to learn more, check out our Agency Ascend Insurance Leadership Training.

Conclusion

Don’t settle for less than the best team you can build. Once you have great people, give them training to improve their technology skills, product knowledge, and customer service abilities. Investing in the right people is worth it. All top teams train daily.

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We’re Agency Performance Partners; APP is your insurance agency’s best friend when it comes to training, strategies, brutal truth & tough love that’ll grow your agency with hugs & high fives along the way….just like a BFF. LEARN MORE: https://bit.ly/APP-Website