Use a Property Inspection to Increase Customer Retention

Use a Property Inspection to Increase Customer Retention
Today’s insurance carriers are facing an increasingly competitive marketplace. Consumers have so many options to choose from, which leaves them impartial to one particular company. While the increased competition is good news for policyholders, insurance carriers struggle with retaining their customers.
As most businesses know, it’s more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones, and this is especially true for the property and casualty insurance industry. In fact, according to research from Lexis Nexus Risk Solutions, the typical insurance carrier will need to write seven new policies to make up for one tenured policy that has been lost.

While some insurance carriers excel with attracting new customers, they don’t do as well with retaining them. Failing to retain customers will have negative repercussions on your bottom line.
Here are some effective strategies that property and casualty insurance carriers can implement going forward to retain insureds:

Ensure Customers Contact Information is Accurate
While ensuring that you have accurate contact information for insureds seems obvious, many insurance carriers are using outdated email addresses and phone numbers to attempt to stay in touch. If it’s been a few years since you acquired the customer, you need to make sure that you still have the right contact information. As it is, insurance carriers typically have few opportunities to interact with insureds. Make those few opportunities count by ensuring that your customers are receiving the industry updates or other useful information that you’re emailing.

Some insurance carriers are setting themselves apart from the competition by offering a seasonal property inspection to help mitigate risk for both the customer and insurance carrier. Conducting an in-person property inspection provides you with valuable face time with the customer, which goes a long way in building customer loyalty and retaining relationships. If you don’t have accurate contact information for your customers, you won’t be able to offer a benefit such as an in-person property inspection as a courtesy for your customers.

Know Your Customer in Real-Time
How well do you really know your customers? Consider offering your customers incentives if they choose to share real-time details with you through smart devices in their properties. Smart homes and smart buildings are on the rise, and property and casualty insurance carriers need to capitalize on this trend by using this information to better understand their customers and assess risk. By sharing smart devices, customers are more likely to be engaged in the relationship with insurance carriers and will realize value in the form of increased safety and cost savings.

Our team at Insurance Risk Services can help to separate you from the competition and retain relationships by conducting in-person property inspections. When we complete a property inspection, we do so on behalf of our insurance carrier partners. Therefore, as far as the customer is concerned, we are the face of the insurance carrier. By conducting a thorough, in-person property inspection, we can help you strengthen your relationship with your customers and provide tangible value.

Contact us at Insurance Risk Services to learn more about our in-person property inspections and how we can provide you with the most accurate underwriting reports in the industry.