Insurance Takes On a New Form
The insurance market offers distributors opportunities to think outside the box.
Digital printing, e-forms, the Internet, you name it—the electronic age has settled into the business forms industry and is here to stay. As a result, distributors find themselves in a position where services, creativity and attention to detail are the keys to high profits. And while the insurance market used to rely on a series of steady and unchanging reorders, in more recent years, it has become a market where distributors can be imaginative, expand their product offerings and build relationships. All it requires is the foresight to anticipate a company's wants and needs.
This foresight can be both a lucrative and fulfilling experience for distributors. Said Mark Davidson, president, PFI, Blair, Neb., "Distributors have an advantage because of their ability to think on their feet and react quickly to the marketplace."
Staying ahead means coming up with ideas, which can be anything from unique products to value-added services—all distributors need is a little flexibility and ingenuity, he added. One adjustment that distributors have had to make is to the arrival of electronic forms. Reorders—once a staple in the insurance market—are not as common as they once were. However, accommodating a company with its electronic forms oftentimes ensures that a distributor will receive orders for products like letterhead, business cards and ad specialties, which supplement and sometimes exceed in-come lost from declining reorders.
"We wish we were still selling a ton of snap-outs and continuous forms, but if we stuck with those we would have problems," said Brad Dorsen, president and CEO, F.I.A., Atlanta. "It's true we lost some of our customers' forms business, but we still hang on to all of their files and give them creative suggestions."
Another change that Dorsen has noticed is that the insurance industry seems to be consolidating. "It can be good or bad for us, but what we want to do is stay in tune with those who are making decisions. When we see a company consolidating, we take a proactive role, speak with its new owners and explain what we've done in the past," he said.
Building Relationships
Dorsen, Davidson and others like them are ultimately relying on services that extend beyond unique products or special forms. These services build relationships and trust, which are essential to keeping the business of a client.
"We look at ourselves as a liaison to make sure jobs are being done right. We try to be a true extension of a client's company," said Davidson.
It's important that these relationships not only exist with clients, but with manufacturers as well. "We are very much relationship sellers and buyers. In other words, we like to think that we have strong bonds with the manufacturing companies that we deal with," said Davidson.
Perhaps the most valuable services to offer insurance companies are quick turnaround times and convenience. While this may be true throughout the business forms industry, they are not always as essential to other types of markets as they are in the insurance market.
For example, Dorsen said that as soon as an insurance company has permission to sell in a particular state, it costs that company valuable time and money each day it tries to conduct business without the necessary forms.
Convenience is equally important to insurance companies. "More and more companies don't want 10 or 15 suppliers. They want one or two suppliers that can give them everything they need," said Dorsen. This sort of streamlining is becoming increasingly important to businesses. With so many resources available people simply do not have the time to deal with several distributors.
"Customers in any industry are very busy and only have a limited amount of time for procurement. If we are able to offer them more products and services to help them, then we build a reputation and trust with the customer and manufacturer," said Davidson. This requires distributors to be more flexible in their product offerings, but it also opens the door to selling possibilities.
Providing services like gatekeeping for a company's branding book also has the potential to expand business. Since a gatekeeper ensures that a company logo appears properly on forms, that same distributor might be given orders for ad specialties. This has been true for F.I.A., and as a result the company now puts together corporate wear catalogs and researches promotional products for two of its insurance customers.
Other services that customers look for from distributors include online viewing of inventory, usage and shipping, automatic reordering and tracking capabilities for policy numbers and numbered check drafts.
Aside from providing various services, it is important for distributors to have specific knowledge of the insurance industry. This is vital largely because it can be costly for everyone involved to produce forms with errors on them, which then have to be reprinted. To combat this, F.I.A. has an in-house proofreader.
"Our proofreader reads insurance forms all day long and is very fluent in the language," said Dorsen. Because of her fluency in the language, she often catches mistakes that the insurance company missed. F.I.A. has found that bringing the errors found in the original text to the insurance company's attention serves to strengthen the relationship.
"There are some companies that just go ahead and print the form with the mistake since it wasn't their fault, and then they charge to fix it. That wouldn't happen with us, and our customers have built up a lot of trust in us because of it," said Dorsen.
An awareness of the laws surrounding the insurance industry is also helpful for catching mistakes.
"At PFI we always ask what a company is going to do about a particular law change and I think it behooves us to do so," said Davidson.
Insurance companies also look for disaster recovery programs. At F.I.A., inventory and artwork are taken off the premises on backup disks every night to prevent the loss of important data. F.I.A also has a secured warehouse area, Error and Omissions insurance and a mirror hard drive. "If we had a terrible disaster in either office, we would have forms back on the shelves in about 24 hours and we would not lose the records. Our downtime is virtually nil," said Dorsen.
Because lawsuits are part and parcel of the insurance industry, another service to offer clients is the retention of old forms and files.
"This is for their protection because if they get caught in a lawsuit in a year or two and they can't find a sample, they can come to us," said Dorsen.
Looking Ahead
Where can distributors expect the insurance market to go next? It's certainly going to be riding the electronic wave for the long haul. Dorsen predicted, "Aside from value-added services, e-forms with built-in intelligence, barcoding and document imaging will be where the most growth is."
Ultimately, being a successful distributor in the insurance market means playing a soothsayer of sorts by anticipating the needs of clients and then meeting those needs through creativity and personal relationships. Dorsen insists that to do this, service and flexibility are most important. He added that if possible, "Never say no, almost never be late, never make a mistake and, if you do make a mistake, correct it before doing anything else.
"These are high standards, but insurance clients have the potential to become large accounts simply because they value time, convenience and accuracy more than cost," Dorsen concluded.
By Sarah Lerow
- People:
- Brad Dorsen
- Mark Davidson