How Do You Handle Drivers that Have No Current Insurance?

[InsuranceBrah]

Change your income demographics

Don't allow deadbeat losers to stay in your marketing funnel.

I think you are misunderstanding. These aren't all "deadbeat" clients. One lady in question is a financial adviser. She just happened to make the mistake of driving on someone else's insurance. Now progressive wants $4000.00 for six months. This lady might not be poor.. but she's not rich either.

Again with the motorcycle guy. He's a biker who only recently got a car. the companies don't want to take his motorcycle insurance as a factor as previous insurance.

This isn't a case of people that let their insurance lapse. Believe me, I'm not one of those guys that opens shop next to the secretary of state. (DMV outside of michigan)

 

[Derrick]

I'm in Michigan as well and I usually quote only Progressive if they have no prior.

As another agent from Michigan, this.

There's really nothing else that compares. I would say Citizens but Citizens always wants Auto/Home.

 

[marindependent]

Sounds like you may have found a specialty niche, if you want one. Have you searched for an MGA / Broker that has a market for these folks in your state yet?

 

[InsuranceBrah]

Sounds like you may have found a specialty niche, if you want one. Have you searched for an MGA / Broker that has a market for these folks in your state yet?

From my understanding progressive is all we have. There's formost and titan.. but I have yet to see them beat progressive on the rates.

Even my parents who are a good risk have progressive for this reason. I'm almost regretting getting set up with an agency... lol Why bother dealing with a split to get access to other carriers when I could have gotten progressive on my own..

Ok.. so since there isn't anything I can do on the "writing side" What advice should I give these people to get them on to a path to insurability? Should they add themselves as a named driver to someones else's policy?

 

[Derrick]

From my understanding progressive is all we have. There's formost and titan.. but I have yet to see them beat progressive on the rates.

Even my parents who are a good risk have progressive for this reason. I'm almost regretting getting set up with an agency... lol Why bother dealing with a split to get access to other carriers when I could have gotten progressive on my own..

Ok.. so since there isn't anything I can do on the "writing side" What advice should I give these people to get them on to a path to insurability? Should they add themselves as a named driver to someones else's policy?

Progressive reigns. Unfortunately, Titan and Foremost aren't competitive at all.

And I wouldn't go all-in on Progressive. Progressive has a history of treating their agency channels like poop, despite being massively more profitable than their direct, mostly online, channel.

About 10-15 years ago they got caught using the agency channel data that AGENTS collected (your customers phone #, e-mail address, address) to market their direct channel as "savings."

They are basically using the captive method to acquire customers right now. It just takes one bad winter for Progressive rates to rocket sky high, and someone like Titan and/or Foremost or someone else, to come in with lower rates.

Do not bank your whole book on Progressive. If you want to specialize all non-standard, sure. But Progressive can and will f you over. Not just because they are Progressive but one bad winter where Progressive insures a lot of MI vehicles, and one massive rate increase (while the others that have been playing it safe do decreases) and you're out of being competitive.

 

[insurance1822]

You weren't in business 15 years ago.

 

[Derrick]

You weren't in business 15 years ago.

Boss was on the board of the MAIA, which is our states IIABA. Told me the story. The MAIA was very close to suing Progressive.

 

[InsDoc]

We have wised up over the years and realized, for the most part, if they do not already have prior coverage we do not want to write them. They end up cancelling any way.

What we do is we quote them with Progressive and require them to pay the whole 6 month premium up front PLUS a $30 fee. Then when they renew we allow them to get set up on a payment plan. If they do not or can not pay the 6 months up front to start we refer them to a nonstandard agency around the block and stress to them that if they will keep their coverage there for 6 months to a year then we have other options that we can help them with.

It has saved us countless hours of dealing with payment issues, cancellation, reinstatements, rewrites, etc. There is a reason standard carriers do not want to write them with no prior.

 

[Derrick]

We have wised up over the years and realized, for the most part, if they do not already have prior coverage we do not want to write them. They end up cancelling any way.

What we do is we quote them with Progressive and require them to pay the whole 6 month premium up front PLUS a $30 fee. Then when they renew we allow them to get set up on a payment plan. If they do not or can not pay the 6 months up front to start we refer them to a nonstandard agency around the block and stress to them that if they will keep their coverage there for 6 months to a year then we have other options that we can help them with.

It has saved us countless hours of dealing with payment issues, cancellation, reinstatements, rewrites, etc. There is a reason standard carriers do not want to write them with no prior.

In MI, you cannot charge such flat fee unfortunately. But requiring people to pay the whole 6 months up front doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

 

[InsDoc]

In MI, you cannot charge such flat fee unfortunately. But requiring people to pay the whole 6 months up front doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

You will be surprised at how many will pay it. You know if they do that they are serious about taking care of their insurance and keeping it.