The Future of Excess & Surplus Markets
Over the last few years, the global pandemic, labor inflation, and weather-related events have negatively impacted profitability and growth in the insurance industry. Despite these big challenges, the industry is expecting an accelerated economic recovery and significantly larger revenues in the near future.
The industry confident it can overcome these challenges by using data to segment insurance customers into groups with common needs and develop new products and services to provide a more tailored approach to products and services. Much of this segmentation will occur in the excess and surplus market, which is served by carriers in the Smart Choice® Express Markets™ program.
The Excess & Surplus Opportunity
The Express Markets™ carriers make up almost $70 billion in premiums across the United States, with projected premium to exceed $170 billion by the year 2030. Your Smart Choice® carriers have become extremely aggressive in offering you the ability to carve out a lucrative niche in this growing marketplace.
According to the Small Business Association, 99 percent of businesses in America are small businesses. That’s more than 33.2 million companies across the country.
Many excess and surplus insurance consumers cannot differentiate between carriers and tend to make decisions solely on price. This is where you can become the product knowledge expert. Stand out from other agents by helping your customers and prospects quickly identify the carriers that offer the best value by providing best-in-class, quality products at the lowest- available price.
Beating the Competition
Approximately 52 percent of your competition can be eliminated right off the bat. While they may be experts on their own products, captive agents simply cannot offer the breadth of products you can. What’s more, if you focus on the risks large brokerages avoid (i.e. risks that generate less than $25,000 in the premium), you may find yourself in a unique position to capture your share of that $100 billion premium growth over the next few years. All you need to do is get appointed with a few of our dozens of Express Markets™ carriers.
If you can help commercial clients place coverage when their captive agents cannot, price becomes secondary, new relationships form, and allegiances are made that put you in line for cross-selling personal lines products. The byproduct of helping your clients with hard-to-place risks is making more money.
Technology in the Excess & Surplus Market
Our industry is undergoing a rapid digital transformation. A number of tech-savvy carriers are using innovative, industry- disrupting ideas to capture more market share. Technology is transforming the way we do business today, from improved quoting and service processes with legacy carriers to brand-new insurtech carriers entering the market. If you embrace these innovations, you will outperform other agencies in your area and become the go-to agent for tech-savvy customers who want to work with an insurance expert.
Consumers are moving at such a fast pace that the big carriers struggle to keep up before the market moves past them. You can excel by being in the heart of the market every day. Help your customers look beyond the price tag and offer personal service and product knowledge. By embracing the ever-changing excess and surplus market, you can grow your revenue and your reputation in your area.
For help getting appointed with our Express Markets™ carriers, get in touch with your State Director today.