Insurance Agency Culture

Does your agency have a good culture? The term “culture” is thrown around a lot these days means different things to different people. But there’s one question to ask that will consistently give you the right answer - do your staff, clients, and stakeholders have the opinion of your agency that you want them to have?

Now sure, that can be a loaded question, so take these steps before you start asking it:

1. Have the Agency Owners/Principals Define the Culture.
What do the decision makers at your agency believe your culture is? What do they think it should be? Are you an agency focused on customer experience, serving the community, and empowering employees? Are you an agency focused on sales, growth, business partnerships, and risk management? Are you an agency focused on price, performance, and providing value? It may be a combination of these or something different altogether, but you must define it.

2. Is it True? Now that you’ve defined it - test it.
Have some honest answers and data to back your claim. You claim to empower employees, list the examples of how. You claim to be active in the community, what are the ways you’re accomplishing this? You claim to add value through risk management, how do you deploy this? Are you providing your own expertise, or is it from an underwriter or carrier? Claim to save clients money, what does the data say?

3. How Can You Better Attain the Culture You Want?
You may ask this question a few times in the process - and that’s fine. But this is a point where you must ask it. If the previous question identified some areas that didn’t line up, consider how to improve them before moving forward. Didn’t have the answers or the data needed? Consider ways to build this reporting.

Once you’ve completed the above, then comes the real litmus test: Does what the agency decision makers believe about their agency’s culture line up with what others believe? You may be surprised at the results. Why does it matter? Because agency culture is a key factor in employee and client loyalty. Don’t believe me or don’t care? Then you’re probably one of the agencies I talk to frequently that, “Can’t keep employees” or “Can’t find people that want to work.” And if that’s the case - I hate to tell you - but part of the problem is you.

Want or need help with answering these questions and building this research? Please contact Daniel Smith at dsmith@marketretrievers.com or call 423.503.0388.