The data Insurance agencies and brokerages possess is ever-growing. Thus, agency managers need to be able to answer how, why, and where they can successfully analyze and use all of this data.
The answer to the “why” is simple: To grow a profitable agency book of business.
But the answers to how and where to use certain data sets isn’t so simple.
In deciding how and where to focus on data analytics, Andy Niver advises agencies to begin by focusing on small data first; that is, the data their own agencies have.
“Forget about big data,” said Niver, who is vice president of innovation and analytics at ReSource Pro, a provider of operations efficiency and business process solutions for the Insurance industry. “Small data is your data, and there’s value there already that you don’t generate right now.”
Whether dealing with big data or small data, analytics begins at the top with a decision.
“Any analytic data starts from top down,” Niver said. “What decision are you trying to make? Are you trying to grow? Optimize employee performance? Retain business?”
It’s important for leaders to narrow the scope of the decision. Then, the agency can learn what metrics and data are needed to measure those things and start to gather data on those particular areas.
“Don’t try to tackle the entire ocean of data. You can’t. You will get paralysis on where to start, so narrow your focus on what decision you want to make. That’s ultimately the starting point,” Niver said.
Independent agencies already have all of the data they need to help in marketing, sales, agency growth, employee performance and more, believes Laird Rixford, CEO of Carrollton, Texas-based Insurance Technologies Corp. (ITC), a provider of software and services to independent agents and insurance carriers.
“The amount of data that an agency holds is really everything that they need,” Rixford said. “All that information is in their systems, from a comparative rater, to an agency management System, to an automated marketing System. It’s all there for them to use.”
However, if the right type of data isn’t collected by the agency, it won’t help. Rixford urges agencies to be sure they are collecting sufficient information from clients to help in marketing.
“Marketing information can be anything from an email address to a phone number to how many cars an insured has. Or whether they own their house,” he said.
Rixford advises agency owners to continuously track and measure data to see how well they’re collecting customer data and better understand the demographics of their market. Agents should ask for details about their house or how many kids they have. Mostly, they should not be afraid to ask for information.
“We’ve seen agencies that say the majority of their customers don’t have email addresses but maybe they are too afraid to ask,” Rixford said. “All of these are marketing questions that you can [use to] come up with data. Then, that will create opportunities, not only with prospects, but also with existing customers.”
Agencies can supplement that data with data from third parties, Rixford said. This can be as simple as visiting a tax assessor’s office to look up whether an insured has a home, a swimming pool, the home’s condition, a new fence, etc.
“All of these things can be used to better understand clients and how agencies can be using the data to help on marketing,” he said.
Agencies can use their own data to paint a simple “big picture view” of what’s happening in the agency, according to Joshua Peterson, vice president of product management for Applied System’s Data Products Group. However, he warns, “Agencies can easily get lost in the weeds” in this process.
According to Peterson, current and more urgent concerns tend to come first in the agency world, but bigger picture views are what help agency management steer the ship in the right direction toward growth.
