New Study Reveals How to Gain Competitive Advantage

8,000 independent insurance agents rate and compare the performance of over 220 property and casualty insurance carriers

Results of the fifth annual Ease of Doing Business (EDB) survey “Ease of Doing Business: 2007 Benchmark Report for Property and Casualty Insurance Carriers” published by Deep Customer Connections, Inc., detail how agents rated carriers of their choice on 11 key EDB factors.

Agents—the primary decision makers in the buying decision— choose carriers that are easy to do business with because of the profound effect EDB has on agency productivity and profitability. In turn, this makes EDB metrics critical for effective carrier management.

“The most surprising of our six key findings is that technology was tied for fifth in importance of the 11 EDB Factors,” said Paul Croke, DCC co-founder. “Technology is certainly pervasive and fundamental to transactional effectiveness, but agents report that other EDB Factors such as underwriting responsiveness and handling claims promptly are more important.”

“Another interesting finding is that commercial lines agents give carriers higher marks in providing marketing support than personal lines agents do,” added Nort Salz, another DCC co-founder. “In contrast, personal lines agents are slightly more satisfied with carriers’ claims performance than commercial lines agents are.”

Other highlights from “Ease of Doing Business: 2007 Benchmark Report for Property and Casualty Insurance Carriers” include:

which EDB Factors are the most and least important in agents’ buying decisions;
how agents rate carrier EDB performance in each of 11 EDB Factors;
how ratings vary by respondent role, agency size, carrier size, line of business, and geography;
industry EDB performance trends from 2003 to 2007; and
the Top 10 performers overall and in each EDB Factor.

The report includes other data breakouts, written comments by agents, and recommendations for how carriers can gain competitive advantage by improving their EDB performance. For more on the report, visit Deep Customer Connections website.

Source: Deep Customer Connections, Inc.

Posted: Thursday, March 06, 2008 12:00:00 AM. Modified: Thursday, March 06, 2008 11:09:35 AM.

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We are 1,400 property/casualty insurance companies serving more than 135 million auto, home and business policyholders, with more than $196 billion in premiums accounting for 50 percent of the automobile/homeowners market and 31 percent of the business insurance market. We are the largest and most diverse property/casualty trade association in the country, with regional and local mutual insurance companies on main streets across America joining many of the country’s largest national insurers who also call NAMIC their home. More than 200,000 people are employed by NAMIC members.