2018 Best Practices Study

Effectively attracting and hiring new talent is one of the toughest challenges for most agencies to execute. Best Practices agencies are able to differentiate themselves in the competition for talent by promoting their standing as one of the best operators in the industry. One BP agent summed it up well: “It is more competitive than ever for our agency from a recruiting standpoint… for both producers and our support staff. Our Best Practices designation is critically important to us in getting the best talent available. People want to work for the best. The Best Practices award ensures that we are known as one of the best.”

“It is more competitive than ever for our agency from a recruiting standpoint… for both producers and our support staff. Our Best Practices designation is critically important to us in getting the best talent available. People want to work for the best. The Best Practices award ensures that we are known as one of the best.”

A BP agent on the recruiting power of the BP designation

In a time where agents face ever-increasing competition for talented employees, investment capital and clients, it is important to understand how your agency stacks up versus others and to maintain forward momentum. One agency reported that its producer benchmarks are “routinely used as information in our producer recruiting conversations.”

Best Practices agencies are required to provide operational and financial data to Reagan Consulting on an annual basis. Navigating through agency management systems can be a daunting task, but it promotes a healthy discipline that enhances an agency’s internal controls and delivers insight and knowledge of the business outside of day-to-day management. One BPS CFO noted, “Gathering the data annually for the Best Practices Study is challenging and time- consuming, but it is an incredibly useful exercise for my team. It requires us to know our numbers and our agency management system in much greater detail than we would otherwise.”

Every three years, a new Best Practices class is nominated and selected for each revenue size category. Upon the selection of a new class of Best Practices agencies, the Big “I”, in partnership with Reagan Consulting, conducts the Best Practices Symposium in a major U.S. city, in which leading-edge presentations are delivered by industry experts and Best Practices agents are afforded the opportunity to share their own best practices in a roundtable setting with their peers. The Symposium, along with other meetings and webinars facilitated by the Big “I” and Reagan Consulting, allow Best Practices agencies the opportunity to continue to learn and to reach their full organizational potential.

The beauty of the Best Practices Study is that it provides virtually every conceivable metric or benchmark necessary to evaluate and improve an insurance agency’s operations. This can also be a major challenge with the Best Practices Study – it provides so much information that, at times, it can be difficult to identify the most important metrics. To that end, with an eye for maximizing agency value enhancement, what are the very most important metrics for agency leaders?

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