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Special Section Sponsored by Target Markets Program Administrators Association MarketStance Do you need to know what the potential of a program really is? How about where the opportunity is—or isn’t? Would recent, accurate, and more detailed information about your target market help with your planning and partner negotiations? That’s where Middletown, Connecticut-based MarketStance can assist your existing efforts. MarketStance puts insurance-relevant answers to questions about markets and business demographics right at your fingertips to bolster program success and growth. Over the past 10 years, MarketStance has become best known for its comprehensive insurance market and business demographic database. MarketStance data and tools are used by nine of the top 10 U.S. property and casualty carriers, as well as by regional and specialty companies, reinsurers, smaller mutual companies, and program administrators. MarketStance analytical consulting services have been embraced by a wide range of entities as a way to improve performance and effectiveness. The MarketStance data cover more than 24 million U.S. businesses sized from non-employers up to jumbo firms in more than 1,600 business classes. Featured are premium, exposure and growth rate data by eight lines of business, by account size and by territory, right down to the county—even zip code—level. For program business, this translates into an ability to: • Better define the universe of potential program clients • Identify pockets of opportunity or areas to avoid • Prioritize, plan more accurately, and use resources more effectively • Better focus sales and marketing efforts • Lower acquisition costs • Produce more detailed and specific program plans and proposals • Help streamline implementation • Identify leads for your active or to-be-launched programs Consider the case of the administrator of a California taxicab program who had seen his production plateau. Using MarketStance data, he learned that only 32% of the state’s taxi revenues were produced by owners/operators. That meant he was missing a dramatic portion of his target market. Because his existing offering included several elements that were unattractive to larger taxi firms, he developed a program more appropriate to large cab operators. This expanded his market potential substantially. In another case, a carrier that writes program business was interested in expanding its writings in the retail/wholesale trade industries. Rather than try to search out new programs based on such a broad statement, the carrier did some analysis using MarketStance. First, carrier analysts looked at the business classes within their desired industry sectors. They paid special attention to which classes had been growing well through indicators such as number of firms, employment and sales. Then they carefully studied which businesses at the 4-digit classification level showed better than average growth in recent years. From that assessment, the carrier was able to identify seven classes that they felt offered excellent prospects for a program. They found a program administrator already successful in a similar class of business, and partnered with him to develop a program that targeted the three apparel store classes their analysis had highlighted. The partners also used state-by-state MarketStance data to prioritize their filing efforts, retail agency promotion, and overall implementation strategy. MarketStance officials explain that their data are unlike other sources of information in the comprehensiveness, level of detail, and flexibility that it provides. The MarketStance offerings can be customized. In fact, nearly 90% of MarketStance tools and applications are tailored to meet the specific needs of clients. Two different basic information delivery tools are also available. Included is a desktop analysis tool featuring a wide range of functionality to profile, sort, compare and rank large amounts of data to identify clients’ best opportunities. Also available is a report-based, Web-accessed tool well suited for firms that need regular access to similar types of data. To learn more, go to www.marketstance.com/programs or call (800) 777-2587. → |
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