Just as accountants do more than fill out tax forms and attorneys have responsibilities other than contract reviews, insurance agents have a greater depth of expertise available to clients beyond selling insurance. To become a trusted advisor, many agents and brokers are shifting focus to the broader need for risk control and management, and helping clients make better informed long-term business decisions.
Agents interested in establishing a reputation as a trusted advisor should be ready to overcome a range of obstacles, but myriad opportunities—such as better visibility among centers of influence and more lucrative client relationships—await those who accept the challenge.
Challenges: Demonstrating value, deploying infrastructure and developing an "advising" mindset
Steven J. Topel, president and chief sales officer at Orland Park, Ill.-based The Horton Group, stated that one challenge facing those in a position to act as trusted advisors is overcoming the sometimes negative public perception of insurance agents, which he partially attributes to agents doing "the look, quote and pray thing," thus reducing every discussion to price or the viewing of insurance as a simple commodity. "We have allowed ourselves to be perceived in a light that isn’t that trusted advisor," he said. "We’ve behaved in ways that make us less valuable as a key business advisor…to our clients." He said that every time that behavior happens, "it reinforces the idea that insurance brokers or agents are really not trusted advisors—they all sell the same product, they’re just intermediaries."