Personal lines buyers are only after one thing: price
Life is tough for personal lines brokers. Flat consumer spending, rising motor rates and cheap direct sales all represent a threat to business. Customers have shown that even though they find aggregator websites a pain to use, they still do. Price is the priority, overriding everything, even quality of cover.
But price is the one thing that personal lines brokers have a hard time competing on. Insurers’ direct channels to market routinely undercut the broker pricing model. Therefore, the big challenge for brokers is to leverage their relationships and persuade others of their worth.
Insurers see the value, especially if brokers can help prevent fraud. Other strong points are knowledge of the markets, the customer, and expertise in policy wordings. People are much nicer than computers to do business with. PL brokers still have lots of ammunition in the fight for market share.
Liz Bury, Insight & Data Development Editor
No comments yet