Help Your Clients by Becoming a Small Business Advocate

One of the great things about being a commercial lines insurance agent is that you get to meet people and learn a little bit about a lot of businesses. This knowledge puts insurance agents in a unique position to represent these businesses in the political arena and brings value to your client that goes well beyond providing them with just insurance coverage.

I want to differentiate my company from other insurance agencies. The way I have done this is to become a small business advocate in San Francisco, Sacramento and Washington D.C. To find out the major issues for small businesses in California, I surveyed 2,200 small businesses around the state and found, to no one’s surprise, the major issues were the cost of workers’ compensation and health insurance. These are issues I have worked on for years and if you truly want to represent your clients, you should be speaking about these issues. As an agent/broker, you know these issues.

What can you do in the area of workers’ comp and health insurance? Are you keeping them updated about the reforms that were put in place under SB 899? Are you telling them that they need to keep the pressure on the legislators and the governor to see they are implemented? Are you trying to work with the media in telling them that workers’ comp costs are hurting California businesses and while costs have come down, we are still over twice the national average and the highest in the United States?

In the area of health insurance cost we need long term reform. Double digit increases in the last few years and continuing double digit increases in the foreseeable future will create a crisis if one does not exist. You are on the front line seeing these increases and the impact it has on your clients. Get involved in and get your clients involved in talking to legislators about this.

To solve some of the problems with uninsured children, get information to your client about Medical and Healthy Families. If you are not familiar with these programs click on www.mrmib.ca.gov. These programs provide good health, dental and vision insurance at a very low cost. For example, children up to age 19 with family income up to $47,125 (for a family of four) can obtain insurance for between $4-$15 per child per month.

You have all read about the broker disclosure issues in New York and to a lesser degree in California. The question really is what value do you have to your clients? The traditional answer is that you analyze your client’s insurance needs, market their insurance, handle their claims, etc. While this is clearly your most important task, why not take it to the next level and organize your clients to have their concerns raised to government officials? Doesn’t this bring value to your client?

A great way to do this is to establish an e-mail tree. You can use the e-mail tree to distribute information about issues that affect small businesses and to survey the thoughts of the small business community. If you want to get someone to write a government official, provide them with an e-mail address and phone number on how to contact them.

It is amazing how successful this can be. Last year I used this e-mail tree to defeat a new business tax that was on the ballot, which saved the business community $43 million a year. I have distributed information about healthy families and have gotten over 1,000 of my clients’ employees and children health, dental and vision coverage.

This type of work will bring tangible value to your client and will set you apart from most other insurance agents.

Scott G. Hauge is president and owner of San Francisco-based CAL Insurance & Associates Inc., an agency that specializes in providing insurance for small to medium sized businesses.

He has introduced government legislation that has affected business on local, state and national levels. He is currently a member of over 20 boards and commissions in San Francisco and California and is the founder of the San Francisco Small Business Advocates and most recently, Small Business California. Hauge can be reached at shauge@cal-insure.com.

Topics California Agencies Commercial Lines Workers' Compensation Business Insurance