Cross-selling insurance is undeniably one of the greatest methods for lowering costs, deepening relationships, and driving revenue for your business. In fact, 74% of salespeople claim that up to 30% of their company's revenue can be traced back to selling additional products and services.
While this sales method can take a fair amount of planning, technology makes it easier than ever to boost your insurance sales. And who doesn’t like a little less stress off their shoulders?
In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of selling additional coverage, the five best practices that maximize your return on investment (ROI) and customer lifetime value (CLV), and how technology can assist your day-to-day operations.
What Is Cross-Selling in Insurance?
Cross-selling insurance is the practice of promoting the purchase of more insurance coverage in addition to the main insurance plan for your clients. This is an ideal way to generate more revenue for your insurance agency without starting from scratch. You can build from the book of business you already have and your current client relationships.
However, when done right, selling additional insurance isn’t a pitch for more money from your clients. It’s about adding value and delivering solutions to the insurance-related challenges your clients are facing.
Here are just a few of the benefits cross-selling yields for you and your clients.
Benefits of Cross-Selling Insurance
Drive More Revenue
Because you’re selling to clients who already trust your guidance, expanding their coverage is an easy way to dramatically increase your insurance revenue. If you capitalize on these opportunities, you can achieve recurring revenue to quickly grow your insurance business’ bottom line.
Maintain Long-Term Clients
By cross-selling insurance, you can deepen relationships with existing clients. In turn, you can encourage these clients to stick with you long-term.
Ultimately, this sales method can strengthen client interactions and transform your insurance business into a one-stop shop for all of your clients’ needs.
Save Time and Money
Selling additional insurance policies doesn’t just bring in more cash – it also helps you save time and money.
Whenever you have to reach out to potential clients, it takes time from your day and dollars from your marketing budget. By selling to clients you’ve already built relationships with, you can increase revenue without spending resources on finding and reaching new prospects.
5 Tips To Cross-Sell Insurance More Effectively
1. Focus on the Relationship/Understand Your Clients
Strong relationships are etched into the heart of insurance sales. To land more opportunities for selling additional insurance, you need to understand as much about your clients as possible.
How?
Review your clients and their concerns, and ask yourself if you have a potential solution to address their needs. By listening to client needs and matching those needs with opportunities, you can forge relationships that spark more business opportunities.
2. Analyze Data and Coverage
By analyzing client data and mapping out coverage options, you can spot the additional opportunities to sell more insurance resulting in loyal clients.
This starts with using an insurance customer relationship management (CRM) or other tool that gathers and organizes client information. From there, you can analyze your clients’ data and compare it to information from clients of similar ages, genders, zip codes, and more. You may find that you’re able to cross-sell based on information that is readily available to you.
3. Communicate With Clients Frequently/Make It a Process
Communication is the backbone that holds insurance relationships together. That is why frequent communication is so critical to increasing cross-sell opportunities.
To improve cross-sales, be sure to use tools – such as SMS messaging and automated emails – that make it easy to keep lines of communication open. In fact, SMS messages have a response rate of 45% and a 98% open rate. This means that sending SMS messages to upsell or cross-sell is a good use of your money because you can be sure that your target audience will open and read it.
It is also a good idea to block off time for regular client check-ins as a calendar reminder to keep up with clients on a consistent basis. As you increase client communication, cross-selling insurance opportunities will often rise to the surface naturally.
4. Access Marketing Automation/Use Email Marketing
Insurance CRMs and automated marketing emails make it easy to flesh out cross-sell strategies without putting extra pressure on your daily routine.
Many – if not most – of your email subscribers are likely current clients. Use email to stay in touch with them and build awareness of lesser-known lines of insurance, such as:
- Identity theft coverage: Attached to homeowners or renters insurance.
- Short-term health: Ensures medical coverage between jobs.
- Business interruption insurance: Used to keep a business running in the event of a principal’s death or disability.
When crafting messages, communicate your value to prospects and clients as an ongoing consultant for their changing needs. You can also build out automated email campaigns based on particular behaviors that make your clients candidates for selling additional insurance.
5. Ask About Insurance Needs
Boosting cross-sales takes persistence and keen listening skills. Insurance agents can uncover the best cross-sell opportunities by simply asking clients about their insurance needs.
Just remember, a cross-sale attempt won’t always work the first, second, or even third time you bring it up with a client. Although it may not happen this year, it could happen next year. To boost sales, successful agents should always focus on expanding their clients’ coverage, but still always keep the best interests of their clients at the forefront. After all, if agents come across as just trying to get more money and not actually trying to help their clients, it can undermine relationships.
When gathering information in your initial contact, ask more questions about your client’s current insurance policies and needs. Understanding your client’s situation and circumstances will help your future efforts to sell additional insurance policies.
Using Insurance Software To Boost Your Bottom Line
While cross-selling insurance can be difficult at first, don’t ever give up! The proof is in the pudding of just how beneficial this sales method is, you just need the right resources and tools to help you out!
Insurance technology can make it easier for agents and brokers to spot and land additional opportunities to sell more coverage without adding extra responsibilities to their plates. That’s where Quotit has got you covered.
Quotit insurance software is specifically designed to help insurance businesses grow sales through many sales methodologies – such as cross-selling – and increase profit by using cutting-edge features that streamline your daily tasks.
Ready to see how Quotit can help your insurance business hit its goals? Schedule a demo today.
