Due to an economic crisis that hasn't slowed down, more attention is on the financial strength of insurers. A new LIMRA study finds that more than a quarter of producers consider the financial strength of an insurer one of the two most important factors in 2011. That's significantly higher than in previous studies in 2008 and 2003, when just 16 percent said they paid significant attention to it.
"While awareness of insurers' financial strength has increased for producers, a competitive product line remains by far the number one consideration for producers when choosing a company with which to place their traditional fixed life insurance business," says Denise Marvel, assistant research director, LIMRA distribution research.
LIMRA's study examined the types of service and support provided by insurers that producers said they valued. Overall, training was the number one choice, with 32 percent of producers selecting an aspect of training as most important. Not surprisingly, more producers felt product training was most critical; fewer chose sales training and one-on-one coaching/mentoring as most important to their success.
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Technological support was second—20 percent of producers identified a technology-based support service as most important. This includes online access to client records, new business application status and commission reporting, as well as consolidated client statement reporting and electronic submission of new applications. Six in 10 producers felt carriers provided very good or excellent support in these areas.
Other areas of value to producers include point-of-sale support (17 percent), business development support (16 percent) and operational support (15 percent). While these individually don't represent a large portion of producers, collectively, an element within these categories are "most important" to half of all producers surveyed.
The dilemma for companies becomes how to correctly allocate limited resources to meet the needs of the producers writing business with them, LIMRA explains in a release. "Companies need to consider their distributors' typical business models and develop ways to determine how that affects their support. This will help them know which programs to develop to meet producer needs."`
Another factor that plays an important role in producers' decisions to do business with companies is the relationship they have with them. Research consistently shows that beyond satisfying producers' business needs, companies must still work hard to attract and retain producers.
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