Hey everyone! We’re just gonna drive straight into it. This is how we do commercial inbound and outbound calls and the information that we gather to get the quote started. So let’s dive into it!
So we try to keep it super efficient on what we gather from the customer when we’re gathering for a commercial insurance quote, whether it’s business owners general liability, workers comp, or commercial auto. Obviously Commercial Auto has more stuff with the vehicles but this is General business information that we gather. Then, I’m going to give some bonus stuff that we gather that really helps you arm you and give you the ammo to close a deal on the back end.
So first things first, Mike calls in let’s just say I’m like “Hey Mike how’s it going, Mike real quick we just need to verify what is the name of the business?” The legal business entity. Very simple. Next, what is the description of what you’re doing, so Mike can you tell me a little bit more about the plumbing are you doing? Residential or commercial? Are you going to people’s homes etc. Tell me a little bit more about what you’re doing. Let them kind of give you a business description first, you always want to make sure you classify that accurately.
So you want the legal business name, what do you do, then residential/commercial, give me percentages. Is it 50-50 residential & commercial?
Mike, what would you say just on an estimate for sales for the year? Your gross revenues.
The next thing, after Mike says okay I got three or four employees, “Okay great thanks, Mike how much would you say you estimate in the payroll annually for those three to four employees?” Great. Also Mike real quick, I see your business address is this can you verify that is the business address? Great.
Then lastly, just wanted to double check, do you subcontract any work out? When you’re gathering all that information you also want to say for the plumbing business are you having any subcontractors come in and do work work on behalf of you? That’s important because certain carriers will accept that and some won’t. High percentages of subcontracting is somewhat frowned upon with underwriting, they don’t love that.
You basically just want to gather as much information as you can up front. So these are the bonus questions when asking for commercial inbound or outbound information.
I really like to ask this question first and foremost real quick: “Mike, do you currently have an insurance policy in place? And if so, which carrier are you with?” Then they’ll say “Oh yeah I’m with Progressive.” “Okay great, and so at Progressive Mike, how much are they charging you?” just to kind of throw it out there. Some people are going to be like I’m not telling you, get me a quote and then we’ll see if you can beat it. “No worries, totally understand if you don’t want to tell us, it does help us a little bit to get to know how much you’re paying so sometimes we can negotiate with underwriting really kind of fight on your behalf as your agent and your broker to try to give you the best possible deal. But no worries we’ll just get you the best possible quote we can get you and hopefully we can find you a better deal.”
“Real quick Mike, other than the price, is there anything else that you care about or is important to you on your insurance coverage, other than price?” They’re going to be like “nah just give me the cheapest price and give me a good company too. I want to make sure I have a good company.” “Sounds good Mike, yeah obviously we’ll get you the best possible price and quality, do you mind if we by chance (obviously at this point they didn’t want to show you the price, but if they did share the price you can always say) “Can we see a copy of the current policy? It really helps us to see the coverages make sure everything’s lined up and that we give you something better than what you got now.” This is where we kind of get into a pre-close so this really sets you up for success when you’re doing these commercial quotes. “If we’re able to get you that better price Mike, and get you a better company, would you consider switching over and can we get a shot at earning your business?” and then usually nine out of ten times they’ll say “yeah if you can get us a better price and you can get us a better you know policy for sure you guys got a shot, we’ll give you the business. “That’s great awesome thanks so much Mike appreciate it. What’s a good email for you to send the quotes over to?” Gather their email and then lastly I always like to throw this in there to get a little more buy-in from the customer I say “Mike if there are any other questions before I get started on this can I call you back on this number if anything comes up underwriting?” They’ll always say yes. It’s also kind of like an invitation and opening that door to continue talking to them and following up with them if there is stuff that comes up so that’s really important.
So that’s pretty much it. This is just a really high level bird’s eye view of what we do to gather commercial insurance information to get a quote started and set ourselves up for success. I really hope this brings some value to you guys and we’ll see you at the top! See you soon, peace!