2 Simple Steps for Automating Your Group Policy Renewals

Automating Group Policy Renewals

If you haven’t adopted automation into your renewal process, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to get more time in your day and provide better customer service. In this article, we'll discuss how to do it with ease.

Communicating with your clients regularly is critical to providing good customer service, and good customer service is essential to client retention. With the many moving parts of group policy renewals, various tasks on your to-do list, and the fast-paced nature of the renewal period, it can be difficult to stay on top of client needs–let alone get ahead of them. 

Automation, paired with the right agency management system, can help you monitor upcoming insurance policy renewals, communicate regularly with your clients around them, and convert these opportunities effectively. In streamlining this process, you also get more time and mindshare to dedicate to other aspects of your agency.  

Let’s explore how you can make automation work for you when it’s time for group policy renewals.

First Things First: Get an Agency Management System With Automation Features

Before you can automate your group policy renewals, you need the technology to do so. While you may be leaning toward leveraging an independent piece of automation software, we recommend using an insurance agency management system (AMS) that has automation along with additional industry-specific features that support your agency. 

AgencyBloc, for example, is an agency management platform that allows you to both store and manage your book of business in one place. From CRM and sales enablement features to quoting and proposal tools to data reporting and analysis capabilities, and much more, our suite of solutions helps you manage your book–and with our Automated Workflow capabilities, you’re able to do so efficiently and effectively. 

Many agents use Automated Workflow to send emails and assign tasks around policy renewals so that they don’t miss important to-dos. In doing so, they’re able to better service their clients and increase the likelihood that they’ll retain them when renewal time comes.

Follow These 2 Steps to Automate Your Group Policy Renewals in AgencyBloc

Depending on the size of your book, renewals are a regular occurrence. Since policy renewals tend to follow the same steps, this is a great opportunity to implement Automated Workflow.

AgencyBloc has a pre-built workflow you can use. This workflow looks for group clients with policies that have approaching renewal dates. It assigns “Activities” (also known as to-dos) to the policy’s account manager to remind them to reach out and start the renewal process.

Here are the two steps you need to follow to set this up:

1. Choose Workflow Details and Criteria

First, you need to set some parameters around what triggers the automation action. Once these criteria are met, the desired action, like sending a pre-built email or adding a task to your Activities list, will execute automatically.

These are the first things you choose when setting up an Automated Workflow in AgencyBloc: 

• Trigger Type
• Trigger When
• Criteria

Here’s what we’ve selected for group policy renewals in the above example: 

• Trigger Type: policies
• Trigger When: a policy’s renewal date is approaching
• Criteria: Group Policies, Policy Status = Active, Group Type = Client, Group Status = Enrolled

The criteria you choose will vary depending on your unique goals. You can tell AgencyBloc which people to look for or what scenarios to find, as well as what NOT to include in the workflow.

2. Choose Action Details

Once you’ve selected your criteria, you’ll define what you want to happen. Here are some examples: 

• 3 months before the renewal date: Assign an activity to the policy's account manager to get in touch with the group's primary contact by a certain due date.
• 1 month before the renewal date: Assign an activity to the policy's account manager to remind them to start the renewal process with the client.
• 7 days before the renewal date: Assign an activity to the policy's account manager to check that the paperwork is in process for the renewal. 

AgencyBloc’s Automated Workflow

These actions (emails or activities) are customizable. You can choose whatever timeframes make sense to you, update the details around the assigned activities (including priority and due date), and customize what the emails say.

When the action is triggered, the predetermined activity will appear on the assignee’s AgencyBloc Dashboard and emails will be sent to the appropriate people as another reminder. Many agents also include an additional email for their clients in this workflow to reassure them that they’re being proactive about their renewal and will be reaching out soon to discuss it.

With these two steps, you’ve ensured that you’ll never miss a renewal follow-up in AgencyBloc, increasing client retention and satisfaction.

What Else Can You Automate At Your Agency?

Policy renewals aren’t the only thing you can create workflows around in AgencyBloc. We know that a lack of meaningful, timely communication is the number one reason clients leave an insurance agency. Because of this, use Automated Workflow for other communications, such as: 

• Happy Birthday emails, which let your clients know you care and create a positive experience that keeps you top of mind
• New Individual Prospect emails, which help you stay in touch with prospects so that you can more effectively lead them to conversion 
• Lead Form submission email notifications, which enable quick follow up–a key in winning leads
• Policy Application submission email notifications, which help you manage the application process and take necessary actions for approved, stalled, or rejected policies
• Agent License Expiration reminders, which help you prevent gaps in credentials

When you know that clients will, without hesitation, leave your agency due to lack of communication and that you should call a new lead within five to 10 minutes for the best chance at gaining their business, you have to have technology in place to support this.

Automation will not only create efficiencies for you but will also do wonders for your client relationships as well.

Keep In Mind: Automation Isn’t the Only Thing You Need for Good Customer Service

The biggest thing that will keep your clients engaged and renewing their policies with you long-term is your dedication to quality customer service. In order to best serve your clients, you need an organized and easily accessible book of business–but that’s not all. You also need the tools that can turn your data into smart data–that is, data that can be filtered and analyzed in order to make more informed decisions.

This is why choosing a robust agency management system that has industry-specific features can help–like AgencyBloc, for instance. Here are some features that you can use in addition to Automated Workflow to support the policy renewal process: 

• Insurance-Specific CRM. Use our Insurance CRM to stay on top of client needs and take notes on every interaction you have with them. You can tie any to-do’s that come out of your meetings to your calendar and assign yourself Activities in AgencyBloc to stay diligent. Our CRM features can also be used in tandem with Automated Workflow to execute critical communications around policy changes and renewal reminders. 
• Sales Enablement. Our sales tools can help you track where your clients are in the renewal process so that you can keep them moving at a steady pace.
• Quoting and Proposals. Quote+, an AgencyBloc solution, enables you to pull and compare quotes from multiple carriers for a range of products in one place for group employee benefits. Then, you can seamlessly build branded, presentation-ready proposals for your clients. After they’ve chosen their plan, use Quote+ to seamlessly map their data back to the carriers and finalize the renewal process.
• Data Analysis and Reporting. Use pre-made or custom reports to get real-time, actionable insights into your book of business–identify cross-selling opportunities before policy renewals close, analyze renewal-centric email performance, find profitable lead sources, and much more.

This blog was originally published on June 5, 2018, and has been most recently updated and republished on May 9, 2023.

Posted by Kelsey Rosauer on Tuesday, May 9, 2023 in Sales Enablement

1. client retention
2. data management
3. insurance automation
4. productivity