As an insurance agent, you provide an important public service. Even though some of your clients might grouse about pricing, there’s nothing more important than having a strong policy that helps support them during life’s most difficult moments. We encourage you to embrace the importance of your role within your local community. After all, who else is there to provide assistance for people at all hours of the day and night when they have a house fire?

For some of you, this may be a new way of looking at your career. But once you allow yourself to fully grasp the magnitude of how valuable your services are, you can also begin to look at other aspects of the insurance industry differently. For example, why does the industry accept insurance proposal form PDF standards that could bore anyone to tears? How is this supposed to let clients know how truly useful and important their policy could end up being? Even worse, how is this supposed to keep their attention long enough to help ensure they select the appropriate policy for their needs?

What’s the Key to a Winning Insurance Proposal Letter?

In today’s world, insurance agents don’t have nearly as much control as they used to over how prospects receive and absorb a quote. That’s due to the proliferation of online insurance proposal introductions and rate comparison sites. It makes sense that people want to get information as quickly as possible, but it can also cause them to miss out on some very important factors. For instance, many insurance buyers don’t understand how vital it is to get an apples-to-apples comparison rather than simply looking at the bottom line.

If you can’t talk to most prospects to help explain what figures truly matter, then you need to present an insurance proposal letter that does it for you without being boring. To do this, it’s wise to provide just enough information in an eye-catching quote to encourage a conversation. Many agents will also attach the full form PDF to give people the chance to review both. Ideally, a prospect will be so impressed by the unique appearance of your online insurance proposal template that they’ll want to call you to learn more. Once that happens, you can use relationship-based sales techniques to close the deal.

Insurance Sales and Consumer Psychology

A 2018 study of health insurance contained a lot of insight into consumer psychology. Much of the same reasoning is applied by prospects who are looking for other types of insurance coverage, so we’re going to take a close look at the study’s findings.

1. Quality isn’t a Huge Driving Factor – Believe it or not, people who have multiple options for healthcare often steer clear of the highest rated providers. In fact, 94 percent of people looking for home healthcare chose a provider who was not the top-rated option in their area. Instead, they went with a provider offering cheaper services almost every single time.

2. What Does the Obsession with Price Teach Us? – Can you imagine having the choice between the nation’s top doctor and one who has received only average ratings for healthcare? You probably think you’d choose the top doctor, but the study in question revealed that isn’t true. This is due to concerns about price, which often trump our desire to get the very best care. Just as 77 percent of consumers are willing to buy generic brand food and other items, most people tend to look at their insurance coverage with the same thrifty eye.

3. How Can You Get People to Sign Up for a More Expensive Policy? – The absolute best way to convince prospects to sign up for a policy that’s more expensive is by demonstrating how this price increase will benefit them. For instance, let’s say that their current provider is offering car insurance for $1,200 a year, but your cheapest comparable policy is $1,300. The cheaper bottom line is going to seem like a no-brainer for most people unless you can show them a lot of added value.

4. How Does Consumer Loyalty Affect Sales? – Another fascinating study about consumer behavior pointed out that people may want the cheapest price, but they’re willing to forgo it if they feel a sense of loyalty to the brand or company in question. 

The top three driving forces behind customer loyalty are:

• Product/Service – 78 percent
• Price – 63 percent
• Customer Service – 26 percent

As you can see, providing excellent customer service will help to a point, but you’re going to get a lot further by having a good price point and a highly valuable service. So, going back to the question of how to overcome a higher price than your competitors, we can see that you’ll want to emphasize the factors that set your company’s policies and other related services apart.

Does the other agency’s $1,200 annual fee include only the most basic service? Then be sure to point out that your agency’s $1,300 fee comes with additional perks such as roadside assistance, a 24-hour claims line and a lower deductible. Once you’ve built that value, the $100 won’t seem like such a big leap. From there, you can use your customer service skills to ensure the prospect feels heard and cared for. If there’s any wiggle room in the price, be sure to extend it toward them. Dropping the price by even $10 to $20 will make them feel like you’re on their side and willing to fight for their best interests.

Introducing a Different Type of Insurance Proposal Software

At Strong Proposals, we believe that giving people a high-quality, visual presentation of data is the best way to help them make an informed decision. In other words, outdated insurance proposal form PDFs need to become a thing of the past as they can’t keep anyone engaged. Instead, it’s best to harness the power of modern insurance proposal designs that take on the familiar appearance of a web page.

Strong Proposals provides a platform that makes it easy to create visually appealing quotes. Not only will this capture attention but it will also give potential clients a much better chance of truly understanding their personalized insurance proposal. These colorful, easy to read quotes give a simple, side by side comparison of your proposal versus their current policy.

Following Up Verbally

As previously mentioned, an attractive insurance proposal design will make prospects more likely to contact you via phone. When you choose Strong Proposals as your insurance proposal software, you’ll gain the added benefit of being notified when people are actively looking at your quotes. Imagine the power of being able to reach out at that exact moment.

We highly recommend following up verbally during the prospect’s viewing window, if at all possible. This will give you the opportunity to answer any questions they have and to help clarify the facts for them. They will also most likely be open to this interaction at that time because they’ll be in the appropriate head space to take in details about insurance.

Maximizing Your Insurance Proposal Form

When we mention the insurance proposal form, we don’t mean the old school approach. Instead, we’re talking about a customized template that prospects can view from any web-enabled device. These forms can be as unique or as boilerplate as you’d like, but we definitely recommend making your template as unique to your business as possible.

Options available with Strong Proposals include:

Opening text that introduces your company and yourself.
Customer testimonials.
A video that allows prospects to connect with you via relationship-based sales.

Yes, that’s right; you’ll be able to put all these components on one easy to view page. Wouldn’t that capture your attention way more than the standard boring insurance proposal template? When you combine all these features with the ability to call them when they’re actively reviewing your quote, you’ll be well-positioned to convert prospects into clients.

Improve Your Customer Service with a Better Insurance Proposal

Customer service may be the third most important factor for consumer loyalty, but it’s still worth catering to. With the high-quality insurance proposal introduction letter available from Smart Proposals, you’ll be able to show your prospects that you’re on the cutting edge. Many people are impressed by companies and agents who display updated interpretations on things that have been around their entire lives. At the same time, your attentiveness to their needs will also give them a good impression of your customer service skills.

Before you send off your next batch of insurance quotes, be sure to check out Strong Proposals. Our demo shows how easy the entire system is, along with how much better it can make your proposals look going forward.