insurance metrics:
Top 4 Things
You Need to Know​
facts not feelings
Getting accurate reports from most management systems is harder than it should be. Despite the processes being challenging, insurance agencies need to embrace learning their systems, building processes, and holding their teams accountable. With the APP system you can get usable business metrics.Â
Why Your Agency Needs Metrics
Too many insurance agencies operate from feelings. I have been happy in the morning and frustrated in the afternoon. Feelings are not a great way to run an agency. You can get quality consistent insurance metrics from your systems! Let’s share how we embrace getting usable insurance agency reports.Â
inaccurate reports
IN YOUR INSURANCE AGENCY?
There are few things more frustrating than running a report in your insurance agency management system and finding inaccurate data. It may cause you to lean on getting more systems or what we call “side hustle spreadsheets” (these are also inaccurate). You have to have a system of truth and work to ensure the information is accurate.Â
top reasons your reports are inaccurate
Without written processes there is no clear directive from the agency on how to handle agency transactions. Clarity is kind, invest in creating your agency processes to align your team toward the best way to handle their work. Need processes? We can help.Â
You have to inspect what you expect. To achieve accurate insurance metrics you need to audit your team. Audits are a way to coach your team, celebrate, and correct any stumbling points early. Effective agency leaders believe in routine and consistent audits.Â
Your agency management system is your mother ship – it’s your system of truth. Too many agencies get it set up and never invest the time it takes to learn and refine your system. In addition, you need to keep up with your system and upgrades. This is the system that powers your agency, it is critical that you spend time maximizing your management system.
Reports are generally accurate. It’s our expectation of the report that may be too high! Setting up agency management system reports are delicate, there are several field and date ranges to select. Understanding what you are looking for and then working with your system to set up the reports helps ensure the report filters are accurate. Â
At APP, we have a reporting team that works with our clients to set up reports and refine the data to obtain usable insurance metrics.Â
We hear it routinely that the cancellation and new business reports are not accurate. You will need to work with your system to understand the procedure to update and re-code rewrites after the policies downloaded.Â
When we work with our consulting clients, it is quite amazing how many times we find a download not set up accurately or system settings that are making things more challenging. Confirming all the commissions, downloads, and settings are set up is an important step to getting accurate insurance metrics.Â
report review
WHAT REPORTSÂ AGENCIES SHOULD REVIEW
Knowing where to start is half the battle. There are system reports and custom reports, all which can tell a different story. In addition, you have to identify the best time frame to run the reports to ensure you capture all of the data points.Â
Here is a list of reports we run for
APP consulting clients
The activity report shows all of the actions added into your system from both your team and download. Most systems allow you to code what type of transaction happened. You can pull this report weekly to understand if your team is accurately documenting, what the top actions are, and what clients are your most active.Â
This report shows all of the overdue actions in your system. You can find activities for team members who are no longer at the agency stuck there. This report is valuable because it shows your team’s backlog and ability to stay on track. Also, your team should be running their day from the management system, not their notepad – this area should be accurate at all times.Â
Many agencies use CRM tools to manage sales, however, your management system should also match the CRM system. Insurance metrics should match CRM tools. New business can show all the cross sales, as well as new clients. Commonly, if your not updating rewrites your new business may be inflated and you could be over paying producers new business commissions.Â
Lost business is incredibly important to track. You need to have a pulse on who is leaving, who you want to win back, and why people are departing. Understanding your cancellations means you train your team on how to save more business. Also, if you’re not updating rewrites, your cancellations and retention rates may be inaccurate.Â
The book of business report is a picture of the agency at that moment. It shows every active policy in your agency. You can identify seasonality, book size, accounts per team member, carrier mix, cross-selling opportunity and more. It’s a powerful report that shows your book’s ups and downs.Â
Some management systems have retention reports. However, we find that each system tracks retention differently. At APP, we review the agency management system retention insurance metrics but also create our own for policy, premium, and revenue.Â
getting accurate data
HOW WE GO FROM A DATA MESS TO DATA EXCELLENCE
We have very intentional process to getting accurate reports for our clients. The process takes a bit of time, however, once the reports are on track, keeping them accurate is simple. We engage the entire team in the process. You may be surprised how the team actually enjoys seeing their progress and hard work.Â
We start by holding a meeting with our clients to help them set up their initial reports. APP has worked with the top management system trainers to set up reporting guides so we can get exactly what we need. This eliminates errors in reports by inaccurate set ups.Â
We want to democratize insurance data. In order to do that we set up reporting dashboards that are provided weekly to our clients. Once they are accurate we actually send them to the entire team (Hint: Their bonus numbers are in there so they can track their incentives). The dashboards allow you to drill down on the data, show historical data, and have it delivered directly to your inbox!
Once the insurance metric dashboards are set up, we now review them with the leadership team. We refine and make tweaks to what is tracking. In addition, we give the agency a list of items to clean up in their system to boost accuracy. Over about 8-10 weeks we should get pretty accurate reporting.Â
Once we have confidence in the data, we share it with the team. Many agents love seeing their results. Agencies use it in their team meetings, 1:1s, and reviews. The metrics become a key part of how they operate.Â
We have created our signature incentive plan based on the insurance metrics in our dashboards. The incentive plan is in the dashboards, so everyone can see clearly how to influence the incentive plan.Â
data hygiene
KEEPING YOUR DATA SQUEEKY CLEAN
Once your reports are clean and everyone is engaged in the insurance metrics the next step is to keep it clean. Data is journey not a destination. This is how we help agencies stay on track with data excellence.Â
KEEPING YOUR SYSTEM CLEAN
Sharing your reports at All-Hands-on-Deck Company Meetings means that everyone is engaged in data accuracy. After all, no one wants to see their name on a big screen as being the lowest sales person when it’s due to inaccurate data entry. A little peer pressure can go along way!
Every job description should include Insurance KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Using data dashboards, you can review these KPIs during 1:1s or annual reviews and tie compensation increases directly to insurance performance metrics.
The APP data team continuously checks the data for inaccuracies and inconsistencies. When we see something, we say something to your team to explore and review.
What’s Next?
You may have read this page once, twice, or even three times and be puzzled about how to use all this great information! I wanted to give you three easy ways to use this report to benefit your team, agency, and clients.
You don’t have to do this alone! We are here for you.