FREE Insurance Sales & Marketing IDEAS » QUESTION #5
From the Q&A Column in Agency Ideas® newsletter

Q>

We’re having trouble counting how many personal lines policies we lose every year. Our CSRs don’t always distinguish carefully between final cancellations and rewrites when doing the coding on their PCs. Our top carrier seems to have this same problem. How can we accurately track the policies we lose? 

A>

This is a common concern. CSRs and carrier personnel often confuse rewrites with true cancellations, especially if the rewrite is with a different company. Reinstatements after non-payment notices are issued also add to the confusion. To avoid all of this, you’re best off assigning the responsibility of tracking cancellations to one person, usually your receptionist. Have all agency cancellations directed to her. She (or he) can then determine whether each policy is actually canceled or has been replaced inside the office. Once a policy is truly dead, she can manually log the lost business on paper pages on a spreadsheet, whichever works best for you. Either way, set up separate pages or spreadsheet tabs for each letter of the alphabet. The receptionist can then record cancellation data in the proper location depending on your former client’s last name.