Ignore your clients life insurance needs at your peril
We had been encouraging an agency to use the Your Life Department service for some time with no success. This agency had a few life-licensed agents, but no one had sold more than a handful of life policies over their entire career and had little interest in stepping it up now. One day, I received a call from the Agency Owner who said he would finally like to give us a try, and he had a lead for us to get started on right away. He told me it was for a long-time Auto and Home client and wanted to make sure we would call him quickly. After talking a little more, he confided that the client had called for a life insurance quote over two weeks ago. The message had been circulating through his office, looking for someone with the time, knowledge, and confidence to call him about life insurance until it finally ended up on his desk. I promised to contact the client immediately and told him I would apologize on behalf of the agency and do my best to get him the quotes he needed promptly. I called the client when we hung up but got his voicemail and left a message. I called each day until he answered on my third try. The client told me that after he had not heard back from anyone after several days, he called another agency for a quote and had already begun a life insurance application with them. Then he dropped the bomb. He told me they also provided him with quotes for his Auto and Homeowner’s insurance and would be moving those coverages to them. By not handling a client’s request for a life insurance quote in a timely and professional manner, the agency lost a life insurance sale, but, more importantly, they lost a long-time P&C account.