Part of creating an insurance agency is having an insurance agency mission statement. This is an important part of your business plan and your ability to attract both investors and clients.
After a quick refresher on why an insurance agency mission statement is so important, learn how to create one.
Why Does Your Insurance Agency Need a Mission Statement?
Before getting into how to create an insurance agency mission statement, make sure that you understand the importance of one.
It Defines Your Values
The most important part of your mission statement is that it will clarify your insurance agency’s values. For example, it lets you clarify that you put clients first.
Defining these values serves a few important purposes. It helps guide your employees in their interactions with clients. It also gives potential clients a better idea of what to expect from your agency.
Strong Values Help You Maintain Clients
It is also worth mentioning that when your insurance agency has clear, strong values, your clients are more likely to stay loyal. That is especially true when you follow through with your values, incorporating them into all of your services and interactions.
It Helps You Focus Your Business
Crafting a mission statement will also help you focus your business. It will always be in the back of your head when you make important decisions, essentially guiding your business path. With a clear mission statement, you will find it much easier to make future plans.
Consider the Audience for Your Mission Statement
Before you even start crafting your insurance agency mission statement, make sure that you know who your audience is. There are three main audiences:
- External Audience: When writing for this audience, you want to appeal to customers and help them understand their future relationship with your agency.
- Internal Audience: When writing for this audience, you want to help people within your agency understand your broad vision, therefore motivating them.
- Personal Audience: This audience is an employee or other specific person. It will likely be an internal audience but may be external.
Remember that you can create a mission statement that addresses all three audiences simultaneously; it just requires a bit more care.
Get Inspiration from Other Mission Statements
A good starting point for your insurance agency mission statement is to get inspiration from other companies. Try to look at those that have similar specializations as your agency. So, if you specialize in auto insurance, look at auto insurance agents for inspiration.
Expect customer service and your clients’ best interests to be common themes regardless of your industry.
Keep the Mission Statement Clear and Concise
As you craft your insurance agency mission statement, strive to be as clear and concise as possible. Don’t try to make the statement more interesting with colorful language. This is actually more likely to distract from it. Instead of adding superlatives, focus on including substance.
The idea is to be as concise as you can while still achieving your goal. By keeping the statement concise, you help people remember it. You also avoid them losing interest as they read it.
As a general rule of thumb, try to write a mission statement that is 40 words or less and just a few sentences.
Don’t Rush the Process
Your mission statement will hopefully be there for years to come. As such, you don’t want to rush the process. If you are unhappy with it, you will have to deal with your unhappiness for years to come.
In a practical sense, this means taking the time to reevaluate the statement, edit it multiple times, and get feedback.
Consider the Future When Writing It
As mentioned, you want to keep the same mission statement over time. As such, make sure that it is vague enough to let you change your customer base or product offerings in the future. You must balance the vagueness needed to adapt to changes with the specificity needed to help you plan for the future.
Ask Others for Their Opinion
Speaking of getting feedback, this is a crucial part of creating an insurance agency mission statement. Ask people within your agency as well as others with experience selling insurance. Have them confirm that your statement seems sincere and accurate. It needs to be believable, or it will not achieve your goals.
The Takeaway
Every insurance agency should create a mission statement to set itself up for success. Your statement should be short, help your company stand out, and clearly convey your values.