Marketing Agency of the Month

Building relationships "from the heart"

Desire to "partner" with clients leads Jeff and Maureen to strike out on their own

By Dennis H. Pillsbury

"We both had worked at another agency, but wanted the opportunity to build something of our own," says Jeff Betts, president and CEO of Landmark Insurance Agency, LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio, in explaining why he and Maureen Boeing, vice president and corporate secretary, started the agency in April of 1998.

"We both worked on the commercial side and wanted to develop closer relations with our clients," Maureen adds. "This wasn't possible where we were. The new agency gave us the ability to start fresh."

Jeff continues, "It took us a while to build the business since, with our process, we take time to develop the right risk management program for our clients. We work with clients to understand their business and their exposures, so we can take a holistic view of their overall risk profile. That often means that we are working well ahead of the renewal date. So it may take longer for us to write an account, but once we do, they are usually an account for life."

Adds Maureen, "I know it sounds corny, but we build our relationships from the heart. We don't just want to write an account; we want to partner with every one of our commercial clients and they know and understand that we put them first. We are completely open with them. We will let them see all the quotes we have received and explain the coverage differences and the strength of the insurance company when we make a recommendation as to which quote makes the most sense for them.

"We want them to know what their options are so they can make an informed decision in conjunction with us—their risk management partners—that will result in the coverage they need at a price that fits within their budget. In fact, we have the very first client we ever wrote."

Jeff emphasizes the importance of developing the "partnership approach" right from the start. "We know we're in trouble when a prospect hands us a packet and asks us for a better quote. That's the kind of client that will do the same thing to you if you actually do succeed in landing the account. We'll sit down with them and talk them through our process, but if they still insist that they just want a quote, we'll walk away.

"So, even though we started out a little slowly, once we hit our stride in about the third year, we've enjoyed strong growth every year."

Claims control = premium control

Landmark prides itself on its claims handling. And it starts with strong loss control so clients experience fewer claims. "We explain to all our clients that the best way to control premiums is to control claims," Jeff points out. "But when one of our clients has a claim, we get involved immediately.

"One of the things that we've instilled in our staff is a sense of urgency. They know that we need to get the right information to the insurance company as soon as a claim is reported. And we have to stay on top of things until the claim is settled."

Maureen adds: "Our insurance companies know that we will fight for our clients and they respect that and pay legitimate claims as quickly as possible. They also know that we will fight for them if the insured is wrong. We've gone to clients and explained why the insurance company is right in denying a claim. It's never pleasant, but it does happen—on very rare occasions, fortunately."

"It's part of the balancing act that we have to perform every day," Jeff says. "We have the same partnership approach with our carriers as we do with our clients and we never want to abuse either relationship. And we expect the same treatment from them. When that doesn't occur, we will reluctantly end the relationship. In fact, we did end our relationship with a carrier because the service just wasn't there."

Growing personal lines

As Jeff and Maureen worked on growing the commercial lines, they also made efforts to bring in personal lines through three strategic acquisitions. "That was an important part of our strategic plan," Jeff points out, noting that it helps to balance out the fluctuations that occur in the commercial lines side, where hard and soft market pricing can have such an impact on premium levels. "It also helped us to be a bigger player with our insurance carriers.

"Personal lines also has the advantage of not being dominated by large accounts so a loss of one or two accounts is not devastating to the agency's bottom line," Jeff continues. He points out that the success of the effort to boost personal lines writings is displayed by the fact that the mix of the agency's $1.7 million in revenue now stands at 52% commercial lines and 46% personal lines, with about 2% coming from benefits.

"While we don't do a great deal of benefits business, it was important for us to be able to offer it in keeping with our holistic approach for our clients," Jeff notes.

"Personal lines is a different animal from commercial lines," Maureen says. "You still have to find ways to maintain regular contact with the insureds, but it needs to be cost effective. We use the Applied Epic management system to help us maintain regular contact with all our clients. It has the flexibility to let our clients dictate how they want us to communicate with them and also alerts our account executives concerning how often a client has been contacted. We never want our clients to feel neglected. Our system makes certain that we contact them at least three times a year.

"Of course, that's a minimum level of contact and is regularly exceeded, especially with our commercial clients. We have commercial clients with whom we have regular quarterly meetings," Maureen continues. "Several of our large commercial clients depend on us to provide them with regular risk management advice so they can continue to improve their loss control efforts."

Jeff adds: "We send out regular 'by the way' letters that outline coverage options that the client doesn't have. We'll actually go down the list of recommended coverages for a particular business and pare it down to those that are missing from the particular client's portfolio. Those missing coverages may result in gaps. We hope these letters will spark something and get the customer to contact us to find out about the additional coverages. It's been very helpful in developing new business, as well as providing strong E&O protection for the agency.

"Even though we sit down with the client at least 90 days before renewal and go over their coverages, there's always the chance that there has been a change in their business or they may suddenly realize that a coverage they rejected at that meeting may be important. We never want our clients to wonder if they have the coverage they need. These letters and our regular meetings with them help us to assure that never happens."

Business comes to them

"We're blessed by the fact that we don't have to do a lot of cold calling," Jeff says. "We have relationships with associations and help set up payroll deduct plans so that business comes to us through these relationships, as well as from referrals. One of these relationships is with the Printing Industry Association of Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio, where we are the agency for health benefits.

"These types of relationships are really important because they allow us to use our resources to meet with clients and to get referrals, as well as getting involved in marketing efforts behind the scenes. And that's a much more productive use of our time and money."

In essence, Landmark has built a network of friends who recommended them to friends and so on. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in a diversity of business in terms of both types of businesses insured, as well as location. "While we continue to be a generalist helping all types of business," Jeff points out, "we do have a wide variety of clients. We insure a railroad contractor in Pennsylvania, a national sign manufacturer in Texas, a 'destination' grocery store in Cincinnati, a helicopter operation, and many other businesses. In all, our reach spans 32 states from California to New York."

Keeping it fun

"One of the most important parts of starting our own agency was to restore the sense of fun you can have at the workplace when you're all pulling together," Maureen concludes. "We don't want this to be just a job, with the drudgery that implies. We're helping people manage their risks and, more importantly, helping them recover when a tragedy occurs. It's very fulfilling. But that doesn't mean that we just rely on job satisfaction to bring home the fun.

"We also have Fun Fridays where we participate in some type of fun activity. We include our insurance company representatives so they get to mingle with our people. We know that when people get to know each other in a relaxed and enjoyable setting, they are much more likely to work well together. We promote that and strive for that every day. As I already said, we lead with the heart."

Rough Notes is proud to recognize an agency that is willing to wear its heart on its sleeve, putting its relationships with clients and insurers in the forefront. Landmark Insurance Agency richly deserves recognition as our Marketing Agency of the Month.