RSA Broker provides insurance for commercial customers via insurance brokers concentrating on understanding the changes in the market and the relationships between brokers and their customers in order to create strong partnerships.
Establishing a new team
Over 100 brokers were canvassed to learn how they deal with property investors and how they would like to deal with insurers. As a result of the feedback nine regional property investors trading teams were created so that brokers could talk to a property investors expert and make decisions in any geographical location.
Results were good but the aim of the ‘Professionals’ property investors campaign was to make them even better. Its objectives were to build relationships between the newly established trading teams and brokers, promote RSA’s property investor expertise, improve sales and raise awareness of the property investors trading teams with end customers.
Target customers
The brokers identified customer-led propositions as key to enabling them to place business. Before developing appropriate new programmes RSA needed to make sure that it really understood the needs of property investors. RSA staff therefore spent time with property investors learning about their work, worries, expertise and day-to- day decisions.
RSA learned not only about the work of property investors, but also about their differences. Traditionally it has suited the industry to segment property investors by the size and shape of their portfolios, but spending time with them allowed RSA to develop more accurate segmentation which in turn meant developing more accurately targeted products.
RSA divided property investors into five different types, from those who buy property on a part-time basis or as an adjunct to a different profession to bolster their income or pension pits, through to those investing in landed estates and who have a very different approach to their business. RSA has develop specialist propositions for each of the five groups, providing solutions for their problems, which don’t just include insurance products.
Spreading the word
Once RSA had developed solutions for the brokers’ customers it had to tell the market.
Brokers in each region were invited to attend a briefing session to get to know their local trading team. Presentations on the day provided brokers with training on how to identify different customer groups and the issues affecting them, allowing generalist brokers to provide a specialist service for their customers. They were also given a ‘Know how’ guide, which provided them with market intelligence, customer profiling information and key contacts as well as product and risk management information specific to property investors.
For three months after the events brokers were targeted with direct mails about the services developed as a result of the time spent with property investors. The DM provided brokers with marketing materials to enable them to talk confidently to their customers about issues such as property valuations, 24-hour health and safety help lines, vacant building inspection services and energy performance management certificates.
Adverts for the new products and services were also placed in broker publications such as Insurance Times and Post Magazine and in the Estates Gazette, a customer publication directing readers to RSA’s property investor website.
Results
The budget for the campaign was £25,000. Over 100 brokers attended the launch of the new products and services and commented that RSA’s insights had provided brokers with the ability to identify different types of property investor and target propositions to win business. The campaign meant that brokers could now talk to their customers about relevant issues and suggest appropriate solutions.
The DM campaign resulted in nearly £1 million of extra services being sold to customers, while 1146 visits were made to the website, driven by press advertising.
RSA Broker has increased its market share and now writes nearly £250 million of property owners’ business. Matthew Finch, a broker at Finch Insurance Brokers, says: “It’s really nice to have a different perspective on the insurance industry; it’s injecting a bit of enthusiasm into an ancient industry.”
