How Do You Know If You Have a Good Insurance Broker? Article by Leibel Insurance Group
Updated: May 5, 2022
The bottom line is often the most important concern of a business owner. Strangely, insurance is not always viewed as something that can help improve a business' profit margins. When asking prospective clients for an opportunity to improve their insurance rates and coverage, I often receive the typical “I am happy with my current insurance broker” response. Even after explaining how quick and easy it is to get better and cheaper rates, a surprisingly high percentage of business owners have just settled for the rates they pay and the minimal coverage they have.
If only business owners knew how much value they are leaving on the table by not working with a high-quality insurance broker. Yes, some may in fact have a quality broker already. However, one would never know unless they took the opportunity to work with other brokers and knew exactly what to look for when doing so. There are several variables that determine what a quality broker looks like.
Availability and Communication
Running your business is you priority, chasing your broker for a response is not. You want a broker that ensures that they or their team reply promptly and are transparent with you. If your broker isn’t giving you the straight goods, they are hindering your business from growing, which ultimately affects your bottom line. Sometimes this includes honest feedback or suggestions that you may not be anticipating or want to hear. That’s when you know you broker has your best interest at heart. I also suggest that you establish a communication plan with your broker. Determine how often you want to connect and by what means. Depending on your operations, you may want to have a quarterly touch point with your broker to review business operations and plan for the future.
Information & Knowledge
Anyone can explain rates, but understanding and reviewing coverage is where you really get to see how well your broker knows your business, your policy and how you are protected. There is nothing worse that thinking you have coverage for a loss to find out that you were undersold on a policy, only because the price was the brokers driving factor for earning your business. When working with your broker, they should be able to explain the coverage itself, how it works as well as review the consequences of not having said coverage.
Expertise
Not only is expertise gained by being in business for several years, it is also about understanding niche operations, knowing the current economic climate, working with, and understanding several insurance products and companies. If your broker only has access to one or two insurance companies, are they truly an expert? Or do they know “their policy”. With access to several insurance companies, the brokers at Leibel Insurance are well versed in the insurance market and are able to quickly determine which insurance company is best suited to protect your operations, thus allowing you to focus on your business.
Claims Advocacy
Unfortunately its inevitable, but at some point a business will probably have a claim.While the insurance company will assign an Adjuster to your claim, it will only proceed based on how that Adjuster operates. While there will be some effort on your part to get the required information to them at the onset of a claim, you should not have to be the one to consistently follow up with the adjuster. Those that have had a claim know what I mean. With a Claims Advocate the follow up is on them, they will with and for you as they want to ensure you can stay focused on your day to operations, not getting a call back from an adjuster. Based on experiences with our in house Claims Advocate, Leibel Insurance clients are seeing quicker claims processing and settlements as our Claims Advocate knows exactly what adjusters are looking for to complete their files. This professional representation ensures you get the full indemnity due to you as quickly as possible.
To put it simply, not only should a quality broker be a professional, they should be transparent, courteous, knowledgeable and motivated to provide you with the best experience possible. Anything shy of this is doing a disservice to you, your business and keeping it from growing. Once you factor in all of the value that your broker should be providing instead of only looking at the premium or price you pay, you can make the right decision for you bottom line.
If you would like to know what a quality insurance broker can do for you, our team would be happy to set a new bar in Insurance service, please reach out to us at trucking@ligroup.ca
Until then, Keep on Trucking!
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