Hey guys,
So I've been PL in an indy agency for 2 years now- solely PL at this time. However, I've been asked by some clients to handle a few commercial things as well. Nothing huge, really, like some 1-man contractors needing a BOP and stuff like that. However, I have no commercial carriers right now. Our PL lines kick ass and it has been great but I'm not going to turn down business, either. While the agency is in multiple states I would stay in NC right now, MAYBE SC in the future.
One of the questions I have while still trying to determine the niches I'd like to market in commercial is: what are a few carriers that would be great to have for broad-spectrum commercial clients right now? I'm looking at Travelers, Harleysville, Hartford, and Liberty Mutual companies, are they ALL good to have or should I have just one of them? They seem like they all would do the same things really with a slight fluctuation in rates for certain SIC codes. Are they all about the same in difficulty to work with or anything like that? If you could only pick one of them, which would you pick?
The next question is what is a good way to get some access to these commercial carriers? We have Iroquois group right now but I've been hearing some people say that Insurance Noodle is good for these types of things. They have most of the carries I mentioned before and Philadelphia, which I have heard nice things about. I've been doing a little digging on them and they look appealing but I wanted some feedback to see if I was missing an obvious choice. As of right now we don't market to commercial but I'd like to get a little further into it once I get more training on CL; but I don't want to sign on a few carries and then they all have production requirements I cannot meet.
Thoughts? Obviously this is in the initial steps but I'm just trying to make sure I have a few good points down to keep in mind while researching. Any other feedback on this would be VERY DEEPLY appreciated.
So I've been PL in an indy agency for 2 years now- solely PL at this time. However, I've been asked by some clients to handle a few commercial things as well. Nothing huge, really, like some 1-man contractors needing a BOP and stuff like that. However, I have no commercial carriers right now. Our PL lines kick ass and it has been great but I'm not going to turn down business, either. While the agency is in multiple states I would stay in NC right now, MAYBE SC in the future.
One of the questions I have while still trying to determine the niches I'd like to market in commercial is: what are a few carriers that would be great to have for broad-spectrum commercial clients right now? I'm looking at Travelers, Harleysville, Hartford, and Liberty Mutual companies, are they ALL good to have or should I have just one of them? They seem like they all would do the same things really with a slight fluctuation in rates for certain SIC codes. Are they all about the same in difficulty to work with or anything like that? If you could only pick one of them, which would you pick?
The next question is what is a good way to get some access to these commercial carriers? We have Iroquois group right now but I've been hearing some people say that Insurance Noodle is good for these types of things. They have most of the carries I mentioned before and Philadelphia, which I have heard nice things about. I've been doing a little digging on them and they look appealing but I wanted some feedback to see if I was missing an obvious choice. As of right now we don't market to commercial but I'd like to get a little further into it once I get more training on CL; but I don't want to sign on a few carries and then they all have production requirements I cannot meet.
Thoughts? Obviously this is in the initial steps but I'm just trying to make sure I have a few good points down to keep in mind while researching. Any other feedback on this would be VERY DEEPLY appreciated.
