You probably have questions, and we have answers! If you have a question that isn’t addressed here, please let us know.
When you’re a captive agent, if rates change or a client’s circumstances change, you can lose a lot of business. One agent we know, Tim Faulkner of Sunwest Insurance Group, lost about 55% of his book that way. So, he went looking for other companies and found SIAA could provide the access he needed. He now has access to about 15 different companies, preferred companies, very good companies, high-quality companies.
With SIAA, you get access to different companies, so in any given company, if one company doesn’t want that risk and gives high rates, there’s another company that does want the business, so that keeps you competitive wherever you want to do business.
When you look at the business side of things you, (1) like to keep your customers, and (2), you like your business to make money.
SIAA and our partner companies have a great commission structure. We offer local, regional, and national profit sharing.
If you compare a captive agency type business and commissions as an independent with SIAA, you’ll notice that the commissions are much better and the premiums are much more competitive.
This means that premiums are lower and you get to keep your business. But that doesn’t mean a lower commission. When you look at it, you’re actually making more money, with SIAA and the lower premiums than you would do as a captive agent and higher premiums. You’ll also retain a lot more business.
Boy, do we! We have weekly training sessions, and you can call us and ask for help with any given area. One example is commercial. A lot of agents don’t know much about the commercial market. We’ll set up specific programs to train you, so you know what to do and what to ask if there’s a certain type of business you want to go after.
SIAA opens doors, and we open them wide.
On your own, most carries aren’t accepting new agents. You can’t get an appointment. Or, you can get an appointment, but only if you write a certain amount of business, which can be difficult for a small agency.
SIAA has the size and membership to get you that access. Steve Griffin found that companies are calling him. “Hey, I hear you’re with SIAA, why don’t you have an appointment with us yet?”
This is unbelievable! Steve says he’s had a few companies do that, he’s writing a bunch of business with them and things are going really well.
Strength in numbers counts!
We’ll let Steve tell you what he found when he first thought about joining SIAA.
“I looked at at least 15 or 20 different companies; at least.
And when you start comparing what they have to offer versus what SIAA has,
it’s really a no-brainer.”
“SIAA has better commissions, they have better profit sharing, they have more profit sharing and they have rather extensive training, and the other thing, if you look at a lot of these companies that are offering associations, they have a set number of companies. That’s all you got.
“With SIAA, they are bringing new ones on board constantly, they get you direct appointments with companies you wouldn‘t get appointments with on your own, and there are other companies that you can use with the AccessPlus program that SIAA has and at that point, you now have. Just ignoring the personal lines, you have the commercial lines and there are a bunch of companies that you now have commercial access to, through their AccessPlus program where you can write just about anything you want to go after. It’s been great!"