Every restoration contractor seems to know an insurance agency can be a good source for referrals. Most marketers have noticed marketing to insurance agencies is becoming less productive over time. The good news is – there is a way to reverse the trend by understanding how and why it is happening.
What Changed?
What changed in insurance agent restoration project referrals game? For years now, one of the largest insurance agent trade associations in the country has been teaching members to never refer a restoration firm to their customers, along with a long list of other things to do or not do to avoid being sued by their clients for malpractice. In providing their customers with a recommendation to hire you, the insurance agent takes on some potential liability if their client is damaged in some way by something you do. From this perspective, referring you to their customers for restoration services is all downside risk for the insurance agent. The professional errors and omissions loss prevention class is taught to thousands of insurance agency managers every year and has a lot to do with your decreasing project referrals from insurance agencies.
The Positive Side
There is a positive side to the risk management message. In that same errors and omissions loss prevention class mentioned above, insurance agency managers are taught it’s a bad idea to leave their customers ignorantly uninsured for fungus/mold/bacteria related losses caused by the “mold exclusion” in virtually every insurance policy they sell.
Today, 95 percent of their commercial customers who own or manage commercial property are ignorantly and needlessly uninsured for mold/bacteria related losses. By helping insurance agents avoid the uninsured mold/bacteria loss exposure in their customer base, a restorer can become an integral part of an insurance agency’s risk management strategy. As an added benefit, the restorer can help the insurance agency produce new income through the sale of needed environmental insurance policies to their customer base of commercial property owners. By harnessing the same risk management forces that are driving the decline in insurance agent referrals for post-loss restoration jobs, a restorer can gain more marketing leverage within an insurance agency than has ever been achievable in the past.
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