If you hear “I’m so busy” in your agency, you need to focus on insurance agency time management. For many insurance agencies, time management is an ongoing challenge. Unfortunately, “I’m too busy” has become an excuse in agencies for not always getting the job done. The challenge with this statement is that it’s simply not a plan.
We have worked with over 1,000 insurance agencies, and every single one of them has commented on how busy they are. However, few have connected the dots to time management. As we work with agencies, all too often we find that they are busy, but not productive.
We frequently find the same time management issues in insurance agencies. Many agents have not fully embraced their management system’s ability to help them manage tasks. Agents often use to-do lists or email to manage their day rather than the system. Management systems have due dates and priorities that help your team focus on what is important.
Another common issue is that agents spend too much time on their least valuable customers. We drop everything for a walk-in payment on a $700 policy. If you take a monthly payment from a client and it takes 15 minutes to process, that is 3 hours per year per customer. And we probably don’t give that much attention to a client with a $4,000 policy. We need to find ways to reduce service on low premium accounts and increase proactive service on our best accounts.
One large time suck in agencies is re-marketing or re-shops. Agents need training on how to confidently handle rate increases, work to decrease re-marketing and show value in working with the current carrier.
