COVID-19 Relief and Broker Value

 

Coverage and Policy Relief

COVID-19 is impacting insurance coverage and policies across the board. Insureds – ranging from large manufacturers to neighbourhood coffee shops, to homeowners and drivers all have a wide range of questions about how these changes impact them. Insuring markets have released a great deal of information across multiple channels in the last few weeks on how they are reacting by providing much needed relief to customers during this time. This however has still left many with outstanding questions as they sift through the details and try to figure out what this actually means for them. This has, in turn increased the service load on brokers and highlighted how they can insert additional value to the conversation.

Brokers have always played a critical role in cutting through insurance complexities. They are needed right now to ensure that coverage updates get delivered quickly in a way that is clear, understandable, and is relevant to the customer based on different information and offerings by insuring partners.

Brokers Can Deliver These Messages Effectively

While in some cases there is a direct connection between carrier and end client, brokers very often own the relationship with policyholders. They know their clients, how to reach them and are used to brokering everything on behalf of their individual needs. They are also first on the receiving line from carriers about changes in coverage. As this information is released, brokers’ expertise and close relationships with both clients and markets puts them in a pivotal place to connect the two together. Our Director of Client Services, Jennifer Pugsley explains this in more detail below:

“What we’re hearing is that brokers are needed right now to provide genuine help and clear-cut information around policy and coverage details that are unique to their customers’ situations. But there’s a major challenge with sharing such detailed information quickly and accurately. Brokers that want to use email as a communication tool for some things are challenged with building these communications easily because they have valid hurdles with data segmentation, email lists, capabilities and effective tools.”

What we know for sure is that brokers who do have the right tools and expertise are able to deliver timely information as it’s being released that is personalized, scalable and topical.

Central to putting this plan into action is leveraging your BMS data and your marketing automation platform capabilities with segmentation and email deliverability best practices.

  • Integrating key data points such as carrier type, line of business, assigned producer or CSR, etc. enables brokers to send relevant, personalized messages from a known sender, increasing the likelihood that it will be delivered, opened and engaged with by the recipient.
  • Segmentation capabilities will enable the broker to proactively answer relevant and common questions at scale and allow for more time on the unique scenarios that require greater consideration.
  • Deliverability best practices, in addition to deploying emails from a known-sender, ensures that your platform is set up properly with critical domain-based email authentication. These all contribute to your email sender reputation and ensure that you actually land in the recipients’ inbox.

Ultimately the right tools and expertise enable brokers to deliver the right policy information and resources unique to each applicable carrier in an effective – non-marketing way.

“There’s lots of talk that COVID-19 is pushing digital transformation in this industry, but at this point brokers are trying to do what they do best and that’s removing complexities and provide maximum support for their customers” – Jennifer Pugsley

In this often stressful period, partners that can relieve some of the uncertainty, quickly and clearly are making a big difference. That difference doesn’t go unnoticed, both today and likely tomorrow.

Speed, agility and accuracy are a big part of the equation when building and deploying timely communications. If you want to see examples of critical bulletins in action, Goose Digital is breaking them down in a webinar/demo that is being held on May 20th. Register Here.