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Technology
Changing the dialogue with commercial insureds
The Risk Management Center helps agencies improve clients' risk profiles, solidify customer loyalty
By Nancy Doucette
Producers of commercial insurance pride themselves on being advocates for their clients. Especially in the area of workers comp, producers want to help their clients become better risks so they can qualify for better rates. But helping workers comp clients build a “safety culture” to reduce losses and improve experience mods requires a level of expertise that producers may not have.
Some agencies have added safety professionals to their staff to bridge that gap. But even in those instances, the professionals look for Web-based tools that bring efficiencies to the process.
Safety as a value-added service
Mike Eckert is a certified safety professional as well as a certified safety and health manager. He has 20 years of experience as a safety professional. Three years ago, Mike joined Kapnick Insurance Group, headquartered in Adrian, Michigan, as vice president of risk services. He oversees all loss control, safety, claims and the agency’s online risk control services for a wide variety of Kapnick’s commercial P-C clients.
Eckert explains that Kapnick wanted to enhance the services that the agency offers its clients, and having a safety professional on staff helped in that effort. “A good number of agencies our size, and certainly smaller agencies, do not provide these types of value-added services,” he notes. “But Kapnick is a progressive organization and sees real value in providing this type of consulting to our clients because it’s different than what the client might get from the carrier.
“We can play an important role in bridging the gap, if there is one, between the services that are provided by the insurance carrier and the client. I can help motivate our clients in responding to loss control recommendations offered by the insurance carriers,” he adds.
“In some cases I provide the direct loss control service in place of the carrier,” Eckert continues. “That happens frequently in self-funded or high deductible insurance arrangements. We do that either on a fee basis or as a value-added for our client. Often, it is a blend of those two.”
One of the risk control services that Kapnick makes available to clients is the Risk Management Center from Succeed Management Solutions, LLC. In fact, Eckert says, “The Risk Management Center is the heart of our risk services program.”
The Risk Management Center is a set of client-centric components accessible via the agency Web site to those Kapnick clients with a login and password. Individual clients can customize their Risk Management Center, making it unique to their operation.
From a branding perspective, each time clients accesses “their” Risk Management Center, they do so via the Kapnick Web site, which reminds the client that the agency is the solution provider.
Risk Management Center components
The cornerstone of the Risk Management Center’s components is the library that contains some 1,500 documents containing safety, risk management, human resource, and benefits information. Agencies can add to the library and Kapnick Insurance Group has done just that.
Eckert explains that he “has the Risk Management Center steering wheel for the agency,” which makes it possible for him to add materials that the agency develops.
For the past two years, the agency has held annual seminars for a number of specialty practice groups—property managers, construction, and health care associations. After the seminars, the agency posts the presentations and materials in the Risk Management Center’s library, making them available to those clients who couldn’t attend.
Curt Shaw, founder and president of Succeed Management Solutions, explains that every part of the Risk Management Center is customizable. “Our turnkey product is made up of a group of software solutions that the agency’s clients need daily to proactively manage their risk management requirements. However we realize that not every organization is going to utilize every tool, so we can unplug components as needed.”
Included is a training tracking tool for quality environmental safety that Shaw says is helpful “if an insurance company comes in to do an audit, or an OSHA group, or an environmental group, or some other regulatory group wants to review the organization’s training. The client can demonstrate that it is in compliance.”
Additionally, the Risk Management Center includes an incident tracking system for all lines of coverage. “This saves the end client a lot of time in their reporting and documentation responsibilities,” Shaw points out. “The client can trend their losses over time to really dial in to their loss control activities and prevent those losses from occurring, thus driving down costs for the organization.
“Insureds can’t get this kind of information from their carrier,” he asserts. “If the agency moves the account, the information gets disjointed. Using the Risk Management Center’s incident tracking system, insureds get a consistent view of loss sources and can then put programs in place to correct the problem.”
Clients can also track their certificates automatically in the Risk Management Center. “Our tracking software helps insureds manage certificates of insurance for vendors, contractors, and suppliers,” Shaw notes.
He goes on to say that the system includes an internal survey tool that helps insureds determine whether or not contractors or vendors have the required insurance and limits. The system also e-mails the insured when a certificate in the system expires.
Another tool included in the Risk Management Center provides job descriptions for effective hiring. Shaw says it supplies job safety instructions for proper training of employees and to be OSHA compliant.
He says the final component of the Risk Management Center is the material safety data sheet management tool that tracks hazardous material at all the end clients.
“Insureds can improve their risk profile using these tools,” Shaw proclaims. The Risk Management Center also includes specific policies and procedures, and compliance tools. Additionally, there is a dashboard that shows the agency what tools the client is using, so the agency can help the client get more benefit from the Risk Management Center.
“We can help producers change the dialogue with their clients,” he maintains. “These tools aid producers in talking to clients about how they’re managing their incidents, how they’re managing certificates, how they’re managing material safety data sheets. This is a conversation that most agents aren’t having with clients.
“Historically,” he continues, “agents have been focused on transfer of risk. They understand that organizations have risk and that bad stuff is going to happen. They try to find the carrier that will take the best care of the organization when that bad stuff happens.
“Succeed Management Solutions is focused on mitigating the risk in the first place. We’re trying to help agencies understand that first they help mitigate it, then they transfer it. We want agencies to talk with clients about preventing the bad stuff from happening in the first place,” Shaw says.
Mike Eckert reports that Kapnick Insurance Group producers are encouraged to introduce the Risk Management Center to clients. “We’re advocates for our clients. We want them to become better risks because if they are, we can get them better rates and better insurance arrangements. It glues us to our clients.”
As for the type of account that uses the Risk Management Center, he says, “it’s across the board. We’ve had small accounts all the way to large multi-national companies,” Eckert observes.
Shaw concludes: “When an agency is looking for the ideal client to take advantage of the Risk Management Center, it’s a client that understands the importance of safety, proper hiring and has an overall understanding of how risk management can reduce insurance expense.
“It’s a culture,” he says. “It’s a client that understands that if they do the proper things with respect to managing their risk, they’ll be a better employer and they’ll be a better insured.”
HOW SUITE IT IS
Succeed Management Solutions, LLC, recently rolled out the Succeed Sales Suite™, an agent-centric version of the Risk Management Center, according to Slade Crooks, vice president, agency business development for Succeed.
“These tools give the producer the power to provide clients with a human resource and benefits package, and risk management resources and support they need to close and retain clients,” Crooks notes. “An agent can send pertinent information to the client. In the process, the agent creates client loyalty.”
Unlike Succeed’s Web-based Risk Management Center, which is designed to be utilized by an agency’s commercial insureds, the Succeed Sales Suite is designed to be used by the individual producers to engage their prospects and clients on a deeper level, Crooks says. He adds that Succeed guarantees a rapid return on investment for this solution that will “differentiate the producer and grow their book.”
The Succeed Sales Suite gives the producer the opportunity to engage all aspects of the Risk Management Center such as a bilingual risk management library, which has been supplemented with marketing and sales tools, and software applications to assist clients in managing certificates of insurance, incidents, and training while developing and building client relationships and sales.
The Succeed Sales Suite includes a client/prospect management tool that will manage drip-mail campaigns, as well as notify the agent when a client or prospect has a policy coming due for renewal. There are automated “touches” to clients and prospects to demonstrate value-added services.
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For more information:
Succeed Management Solutions, LLC
Web site: www.succeedms.com |
