Broker Selection, What is it?

As a business owner, you have so many things on your plate. You probably don’t even know where to begin when it comes to buying your insurance. Truthfully, let me go ahead and apologize to you now because our industry has conditioned you on how to do this. That’s probably not the best way to learn your information. We here at Florida Risk Partners have put together a series of videos that you can use to give yourself some unbiased information about the different approaches to buying insurance for middle-market companies. I hope that you find some value in it. Also, at the end of this series, you’re going to have the opportunity to download an e-book that specifically outlines tactics and tricks you can use from your side of the table as the buyer to make sure that you’re getting the best deal. You’re holding all of those savage insurance agents in check.
 

What is Broker Selection?

Today, we’re going to talk about what is my favorite way to sell. It’s honestly the best way to buy your insurance and make sure that your risk management program gets correctly serviced. That is through broker selection. Now you can say agent selection, broker selection. There are some nuances to those terms with which you should be familiar. But at the end of the day, many people on the streets are using them interchangeably. I’m just going to go with broker, and we’ll keep it there.

How Does Broker Selection Work?

In the broker selection process, the buyer interviews brokers and their agencies to determine whose value proposition will be the best overall fit for them. Now you might be accustomed to buying insurance based on a bidding process or whoever has the lowest premium. But in many cases, in the more complex companies in the middle market, you have issues way outside of insurance that are impacting the cost of those premiums. It would be best if you worked with a firm that understands your company’s nuances and how to fix things when they get a little bit off-center. Typically in a broker selection process, you would interview, most times, three different brokers that are willing to come in and talk to you about how they would solve the problems that your company is facing.  Agents should also explain what resources they would be willing to give you and what follow-up mechanisms they have in place.  Also, they discuss how they will report progress over the year to make sure that all of those promises are getting delivered.
 

What is the Outcome?

In the broker selection process, the buyer determines which broker has the best value proposition, and then they hire that firm. Now, if you noticed, insurance never came into that conversation, and truthfully it shouldn’t. Insurance is the commoditized shuffling of paperwork. Honestly, the market bears pricing. Aside from some forms and endorsements and minor differences in coverage, the pricing usually ends up being relatively close. It is best to allow the agent to handle that process. Now, if you’ve never been through broker selection, that’s one of the things we’re going to teach you in the free e-book that I’m giving you the ability to download if you click right down here below.
 
Hopefully, this has been some valuable information to you, and you understand a little bit more about broker selection versus some of the other methods. As always, if you have any questions at all, feel free to reach out to me at any time. The link to my calendar is on this page. You can schedule a time, and we can talk.