Insurance agents looking to grow their commercial auto insurance businesses can take several steps to grow this particular policy line, whether you’re trying to add this policy as part of more coverage bundles or want to grow it on its own.
Commercial auto coverage tends to be a bit more niche than some other forms of commercial policies — only certain types of businesses tend to have commercial vehicles, whereas a general liability policy might apply to essentially any type of company. But that niche quality can be turned into an advantage for insurance agents who play up their expertise in this area and their emphasis on the types of businesses who might need this coverage.
In this article, we’ll dive into more detail on how insurance agents can grow their commercial auto insurance books, both with existing customers and when trying to attract new ones.
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Build Deeper Relationships With Existing Customers
Before getting too caught up in finding new insurance leads to grow your commercial auto insurance book, it’s important to see what you might already have with existing customers. Try to build deeper relationships with current clients, whether that means offering to have more check-in meetings, inviting clients to networking events, engaging with current customers on social media, etc. By doing so, you can gain benefits such as:
Larger Policy Sales:
Existing commercial auto insurance customers can potentially be mined for business if you develop strong relationships. For example, a food truck owner might be a small client now, but if you still pay attention to them and help them feel valued, they might be more likely to work with you on a larger policy if they add more trucks to their business. Make sure that you provide a good onboarding and renewal experience so that growing businesses want to also grow their commercial auto insurance policies with you.
More Multi-Policy Sales:
If your relationship with customers is shallow, you might not know, for example, that someone you sold a business owners’ policy to also has a company vehicle that they need insured. Getting to know your current customers more and seeing how else you can help them might lead to more multi-policy sales. In some cases, you can get quick wins, such as if a current customer already has a company vehicle and you address this during a check-in meeting with them. Or, you might find that building relationships pays off down the road, such as if a new business owner eventually expands their company and needs a vehicle fleet.
More Referrals:
Another benefit of building deeper client relationships is that it can lead to more referrals. A current customer might not have any company vehicles now or in the future, but if they trust you and value your service, they might refer you to another business owner who needs commercial auto coverage. Getting referrals can take time, but it can help you build a stronger long-term business, as these are often high-quality leads.
Demonstrate Industry Knowledge/Focus:
Another way to grow your commercial auto insurance business is to demonstrate your industry knowledge as it relates to the customers who need this coverage. Whether you’re looking to insure manufacturers that have a fleet of trucks to transport their goods or a real estate agent who relies on a car to take clients to showings you can attract these clients by showing them you’re focused on protecting their business.
Make a list of the types of clients you mainly sell commercial auto insurance policies to. Even if you would sell a policy to a business outside this list, it helps to know your primary audience. From there, see how you can share your knowledge of these sectors in helpful ways, such as:
- Creating a blog post advising food truck owners on when to consider adding a second truck; even if you don’t currently have this knowledge, you can create this content that attracts food truck owners by interviewing relevant business experts and sharing that info on your blog.
- Sharing tips on social media on how real estate agents can provide a better customer experience; while you might not have this first-hand knowledge, if you see a helpful article, for example, you can share that on social media. That way, these clients and prospects know you’re focused on their industry and can appreciate you sharing information that helps their business.
- Creating a section on your website specifying how you help certain types of clients; listing out how you work with manufacturers to insure their trucks, for example, rather than just having a generic services page, can help you demonstrate to these businesses that you’re focused on companies like them.
Create Dedicated Commercial Auto Insurance Marketing Campaigns
Related to demonstrating your industry knowledge/focus is the idea to create dedicated commercial auto insurance marketing campaigns. A more general approach would be to, say, just make a Facebook ad that says you provide commercial insurance and links to the homepage of your website. But in that scenario, a potential client might not specifically realize that you provide commercial auto insurance. They might instead assume you only provide things like professional liability coverage and think that they need to turn to whoever provides their personal auto insurance.
Instead, you can create marketing campaigns that specifically let prospects and existing clients know that you provide commercial auto insurance coverage. For example, you might create a social media ad geared toward manufacturers that links to a targeted landing page answering common questions about obtaining coverage for a fleet of trucks.
These marketing campaigns can serve the dual purpose of both informing prospects and clients that you provide this type of coverage while also showing that you’re focused on issues relevant to their businesses. That can help more business owners turn to you when they need commercial auto insurance.
Turn Interest Into Sales
As you start to attract more interest in the commercial auto insurance policies you sell, it’s important to be able to convert that interest into new insurance sales. So, after you draw in more prospects by demonstrating your knowledge and creating dedicated marketing campaigns, you want them to be able to easily sign up for a policy. Using platforms like Wheelhouse can help, as you can use the software to create targeted landing pages and enable prospects to quickly generate bindable quotes on their own.
Wheelhouse can also help as you build deeper relationships with existing customers, such as by automating more of the renewal process. If you can spend less time tracking when to send out renewal notices, for example, you can have more time to conduct check-in meetings before the renewals. That way, you can find out if a client wants to add commercial auto coverage to another type of commercial insurance policy.
Similarly, insurance agents shouldn’t be shy about cross-selling. When customers sign up for other types of policies, offering to insure their business vehicles can be an added bonus that they didn’t initially think of when signing up for, say, a general liability policy.
Altogether, following these tips, along with the more general insurance marketing best practices, can help you grow your commercial auto insurance book.