If your insurance agency offers flood insurance, this is the perfect time of the year to work to sell more of it. Doing so will help your bottom line and protect your clients from the financial impact of flood damage. We’ve gathered some of the best ways to sell more flood insurance.
Target Renewals
A great starting point when you want to sell more flood insurance is renewals. To start, make sure that your clients who currently have flood insurance are set up to renew it. Ideally, start the process of renewals 90 to 120 days before the expiration date of each policy. If your homeowners insurance clients don’t have flood insurance, renewal time is a great time to bring it up.
Provide Quotes
Even though flood insurance is smart to have, most people don’t think about looking for it, unless they live in an incredibly flood-prone area or one that requires this type of insurance. But you can improve interest in flood insurance simply by providing quotes.
The goal here is to remind homeowners that flood insurance exists and show them that it is much more affordable than they likely realize.
How do you provide the quote? The easiest option is to include a quote for flood insurance on every new policy or every quote anyone asks for. You can also try advertising that you offer free quotes on flood insurance.
Understand Why Flood Risk Is Increasing
You will want to educate clients on the importance of flood insurance, but you can’t do that unless you understand it yourself. Make sure that you understand why we are seeing more floods before and in new locations.
Some factors include aging levees, pollution in waterways and drains, vulnerable coasts, changing weather patterns, and increased construction.
Educate Clients on Flood Risks
As mentioned, most people don’t really think about the risk of floods damaging their property. This means that they don’t understand how important flood insurance really is. You can help overcome this by educating your clients. You don’t have to be overly pushy and probably shouldn’t use scare tactics, but you can highlight the risks of their area.
Look up figures for your area. Ideally, you want to highlight that there is a high risk even for those who aren’t in mandatory flood zones. A good starting point is to highlight the risk in areas right next to these zones, especially with climate change. Thirty percent of flood losses overall take place in these zones.
Focus on Changing Misconceptions
In addition to general education about flood insurance, try to focus on clearing up common misconceptions about it. Some of the most common of these misconceptions include:
- That the flood insurance will automatically renew (it won’t)
- That homeowner’s insurance covers flood damage (it usually doesn’t, and if it does, it will be limited)
- That the property is low risk (climate change is changing this)
Educate with Quick-win Marketing
Educating your clients about the importance of flood insurance is easy to do in a face-to-face conversation, but you can also include it in your marketing. For example, consider a marketing campaign that highlights how much damage even an inch of flooding can cause. Or share a statistic. Throw in one of those misconceptions as well and present a fact that proves it wrong.
Maintain Communications With Your Clients
Don’t forget to communicate with your clients. Remember that you want to build relationships with your clients to sell any type of insurance, including flood insurance. Make it a point to periodically reach out to your current clients about their policies in general and flood insurance in particular.
Encouraging them to renew their policies will be one obvious touchpoint. You can also send holiday greetings or even send cards on their birthdays. Or you can just call or email to check in and ask clients to fill out a survey. The more touchpoints you have, the more likely you are to retain clients, as long as you don’t go overboard. Jenesis makes this easy with its email integration.
Convert NFIP Policyholders
If you have clients who are covered by NFIP, talk to them about the advantages of having private flood insurance. As a refresher, these include:
- Higher limits
- Faster time-to-coverage
- Better rates
- Greater flexibility
- Broader coverage
- Less administrative hassle
Stay Informed and Compliant
With climate change and more harsh floods in recent years, the laws regarding flood insurance are changing. One example is FEMA’s expected release of a new rating methodology for flood insurance. Make sure that you know how your policies rate and can explain the intricacies of the system to your clients.
Conclusion
Selling more flood insurance is a simple way of boosting your insurance agency’s income. This is the perfect time of the year to focus on selling flood insurance, and the above tips can help you. Start with renewals and focus on education, combining those with your other tried and true marketing strategies.