I know that when I interview a professional service, I find the process overwhelming.  Whether it’s a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, I feel unqualified to test their knowledge.  After all, they’re the professional.  How am I supposed to know if they are telling me what is technically accurate?

I know that people feel the same way when choosing an insurance broker.  Nobody likes insurance in the first place, so how can you tell if the person you’re talking to is good at insurance?

The better approach is to pick a person that is good at their job and trust them to do it well.

This blog post gives 44 sample interview questions you can use to interview an insurance broker segmented into 5 different categories.  It also gives you suggestions on what you want to hear in the answers.  My belief is that if you use some combination of these questions, you’ll be able to screen out insurance brokers that are unqualified to handle your organization. 

Experience

1.       How long have you been working with my industry?

2.       How long have you been with your current agency?

3.       How long has your agency been working with my industry?

4.       Has your agency been growing, stagnant, or shrinking?

5.       Has your personal book of business been growing, stagnant, or shrinking?

6.       How long do you see yourself staying in your current situation?

7.       Can you give me examples of other similar organizations you work with?

8.       How many organizations like mine do you currently insure?

9.       What did these other organizations struggle with?  How did you help them?

10.   What kind of designations do you currently maintain?

Listen for the following

Ideally, you’re looking for the following attributes:

1.       A established insurance agent

2.       That is happy with their current job

3.       That sees themselves staying with the current agency for an extended period of time

4.       Whose personal business is growing.

5.       Who is committed to your industry

6.       And is with an agency that is committed to your industry

Risk Management: Mitigating and Controlling Risks

1.       What does your process look like for analyzing my risk management needs?

2.       What does your process look like for analyzing my coverage needs?

3.       What benchmarks do you use to provide coverage recommendations?

4.       In your experience, what are the most common claims that an organization like mine will experience?

5.       What are the best practices we should have in place for managing those risks?

6.       What kind of resources do you have available to manage those risks?

7.       How would you go about evaluating which risks are relevant to me?

8.       Do these additional resources cost money?  Or are they included in the program?

9.       In your experience, what are the challenges that organizations like mine face with implementing these risk management programs?

10.   Are these resources offered through your agency or through the insurance company?

Listen for the following:

An ideal agent will:

1.       Have a systematic process for providing risk management recommendations

2.       And coverage recommendations

3.       Understand available services

4.       And have a plan on how to deliver those services to you

5.       And will know how to do this within your budget.

A plan for approaching the marketplace

1.       Which carriers do you think will have the greatest appetite for my organization?

2.       What will they need in order to consider my account?

3.       What do they typically like to see when underwriting accounts like mine?

4.       What is your strategy for persuading these insurance companies to offer the most advantageous rates and coverage?

5.       Do you have insurance companies that you prefer to work with?  Who are they?

6.       Which companies are most aggressively pursuing my type of organization currently?

7.       What kind of cover letter do you write to entice underwriters to consider an account?

8.       What is the usual timeline for underwriting?

9.       When do you think you will be back in touch with me?

Listen for the following:

An ideal agent will:

1.       Know which companies are interested in you.

2.       Will know which ones are behaving aggressively.

3.       They will know how to get their attention

4.       They will have an established reputation with those insurance companies

5.       They will have a methodology for presenting submissions to an underwriter to make your operation look appealing.

Ongoing support

1.       Can you describe the size of your agency?

2.       How would you handle ongoing requests like certificates, evidence of property insurance, and other requests?

3.       Who would be my primary point of contact for daily requests?

4.       How will your agency make my policy information available to me?

5.       How will your agency interact with me when I have a claim?

6.       Do you have any people in your organization specifically devoted to claims administration?

7.       Who do I call when the customer service is not responsive?

8.       What kind of ongoing education does your agency provide for risk management and industry trends?

Listen for the following:

An ideal agent will:

1.       Have dedicated customer service staff

2.       Technology that makes the process easier

3.       Individuals that can provide support when claims are not going smoothly

4.       An escalation process when customer service fails

5.       A plan for providing ongoing education to their clients

Renewal process

1.       What does a renewal process look like with your agency?

2.       Can you give me a timeline of how that interaction?

3.       What do you typically cover in your renewal strategy meeting?

4.       How often do you typically recommend getting secondary quotes from the marketplace?

5.       Will you be proactively contacting me about renewals?

6.       What type of action do you take to stay up on industry trends, both insurance and my industry?

7.       How do you relay best practices to your clients proactively?

Listen for the following:

An Ideal agent will

1.       Have proactive, systemized renewal process

2.       That includes a description of the current insurance marketplace

3.       That provides ongoing risk management recommendations

4.       Have a long-term strategy for managing your insurance costs, while also helping you preserve a good relationships with your insurance company

There are no perfect brokers.  Every broker that became the best started as someone with no reference accounts.  Sometimes great insurance brokers get old and tired.  Sometimes the needs of their current client list become so great that they can’t promise to provide personalized service to each of their agents.  Sometimes they may work with an agency that doesn’t have a list of clients in your industry, but they promise to give focused attention to your organization.

It's important that you choose the characteristics most important to you.  My recommendation is that you start with an agency and a broker that care, and work back from that point.