Insurance Referral

As an insurance adviser, do you spend a sizeable amount of your work hours actively seeking new clients? Would you like to improve your profitability? How about trying generating business through an insurance referral?

With good old fashioned referrals, you could move from just selling life insurance to building a profitable practice. That’s because, when satisfied customers talk about how happy they were with your service, new prospects find it easier to call you up and buy insurance. Does it sound too good to be true? Here are some tips and techniques for building an insurance referral-based practice.

 1. Happy customers will be happy to recommend you: Don’t just sell insurance to your clients. Give them advice that they will value, and ensure an impeccable service. When you make sure that you are doing all the right things to improve their experience of doing business with you, these clients will naturally refer your good services to their network of friends, family and colleagues. As you get good-word-of-mouth publicity, there’s a higher chance of getting a quality insurance referral, or a new prospect that is more likely to buy insurance from you.

 2. Create a niche for your business: Specialize. That’s the keyword here. Give each new insurance referral a reason to pick up the phone and call you up. Think of it this way…. You are not the only business selling insurance, neither are you the only business looking for referrals. So, why should new prospects prefer you over someone else? Give them a good reason to buy their insurance from you. Identify a need you can fill in. For instance, to become the preferred local insurance agent, add more products or services to your portfolio. Alternately, hone your expertise in a particular insurance area, so you can help customers plan and buy insurance products that are most appropriate for them. When word gets out about the variety of products or your specific expertise, you will generate more insurance referrals.

3. Build a relationship: Accord your clients more than just business value. Focus on building and nurturing long term relationships with them, especially with clients who are in a position to give advice to others, such as accountants, attorneys, physicians, or salespeople. You will be amazed at how fast you will receive an insurance referral.

4. Partner with other professional advisors: With an increasing number of insurance advisors specializing in specific areas, they are aware that their knowledge is limited in one direction. As a result, they cannot advise clients on just about every insurance product, and are likely to refer their clients to someone who can. That means you stand to gain if you partner with other insurance agents and advisors. So long as you aren’t perceived as a potential competitor and your services complement what they have, you are likely to have found a great insurance referral source.