Let’s be honest.
As much as you want to save on your insurance costs, what you really want is control over your costs. It pains you to trust someone else to shop for you and you don’t know enough about insurance, so you trust what they say. On top of that, you’ve never been taught how to shop for insurance, so you do it the only way the industry has ever taught you (quote & hope).
This all leads to a culmination of blindly trusting someone because they got you a rate lower than what you were previously paying. There’s no validation of coverage and certainly no strategy to hold them accountable (my best guess, anyway).
Here’s the thing that most tech founders and executives get wrong: they spend countless hours trying to control costs by pitting insurance agents against each other. You know the drill –
“get me good coverage at a better price and you’ve got my business.”
^c’mon, don’t tell me you haven’t used this before!
I hear this line so often I could probably retire if I had a dollar for each time. And look, I get it. You’re running a growing tech company, and insurance feels like just another cost center to optimize.
How do you get control of your costs?
Truth is, I’m guessing more insurance agents read this than buyers, so there’s no need to spill all the beans here because they already know. The point is this…beating down insurance prices doesn’t give you control.
- Control is knowing exactly when you are getting your next renewal.
- Control is knowing what your renewal premium is going to look like before your renewal lands.
- Control is knowing exactly which carriers are competing for your business.
- Control is knowing why carriers declined the opportunity to offer a quote
- Control is knowing exactly how to negotiate coverage and premium
The issue with high insurance premiums is nothing other than the absence of a strategy to control them.
Where’s the value here, Jake?
Yeah yeah, here it is…
When you’re coming up for renewal, ask your broker for a list of carriers they approached and what the responses were. Keep this list so that you know who they approached, year over year. This is important because you don’t want to apply with the same carrier 5 years in a row (especially if you don’t go with their offer).
If there was a carrier who declined to offer a proposal, ask why. If you understand why and make the change in your business, then you’ll know exactly how to get another offer next year to make it even more competitive.
The goal is to make the carriers compete for your business.
Imagine standing in front of two car dealerships looking at the same car. If they both are trying to make the sale, and they both know what the other is offering, you create a bidding war. One lowers the price, the other throws in some accessories, now you control the outcome.
Want to actually take control of your insurance program?
Let’s connect on LinkedIn and talk about what that could look like for you. The strategy runs deep, and you can use it with or w/out me. I’ll give it to you for free.