How Can Joining a Network Help Your Insurance Agency’s Bottom Line?

Photo illustration showing a calculator and cash on an agent's desk.

Aligning your agency with the right network can pay dividends for years to come. Here are the questions to ask when considering whether it’s the right strategy for your business.

If you’re an insurance agency principal, you likely have some questions about how joining an agency network can improve your bottom line, and whether it’s truly the right move for you. Joining an agency network is an investment in your business, so it’s important to carefully consider which group will give you the best return on that investment.

Agency networks vary in terms of what they offer their members; some limit their offerings to profit-sharing agreements and market access, while some deliver far more in terms of practical, valuable services that can help your agency in a variety of ways.

If you’re looking for offerings that extend beyond those of most agency networks — with no entrance or exit fees — then Renaissance is equipped to become your trusted partner.

Let’s address some of the most common questions about how joining an agency network like Renaissance Alliance can improve your bottom line.

Will becoming a member help in managing my staffing expenses?

The first thing agency principals need to know is that Renaissance member agencies remain independent. All your hiring and staffing decisions remain with you, as they should.

That said, there are ways in which being a member can help you in this area.

Most agency owners believe that you need to hire more staff in order to grow, with the knowledge that the process of hiring new people – especially CSRs – can be time-consuming and expensive.

Joining Renaissance allows you to grow your agency without hiring, which helps you save money on payroll. Our members are able to outsource non-revenue-generating operational activities like billing, bookkeeping, placement, duplicate entry, marketing services and other functions.

More than 90 staff members at Renaissance help our member agencies free up valuable time to focus on engaging and advising your customers. After all, it’s your advice and guidance that your customers want and need most.

When your staff can focus on what matters most – providing great service to clients and selling more policies – without wasting time on tasks that can be automated or outsourced, you can maximize agency growth without requiring more employees to do it.

Download our free e-book here: The Independent Agent’s Playbook for Success – How to Solve Your Agency’s Five Biggest Challenges 

How much enhanced compensation will I receive?

Many agency networks concentrate mainly on profit sharing. Renaissance offers our members the advantages of profit sharing as well as fixed overrides, growth bonuses and other financial incentives.

Our experienced, in-house team continues to build and maintain strong relationships with insurers and negotiates the best compensation possible for our member agents. Renaissance achieves this in part by demonstrating the value of agency growth to insurance companies: We’re able to secure greater compensation because our members continue to organically grow, which means more business placed with our partner carriers.

Renaissance members enjoy full transparency in this regard by being provided easy access to all of our carrier terms (which can be accessed on demand) and the benefits being paid to our member agencies. With our monthly updates and RevenueTrak dashboard, daily reporting tools, and services like Arno (our mobile app), our members have immediate access to information about their enhanced compensation, so they can measure performance and view improvement indicators.

While no one can predict profit sharing and compensation perfectly, having a fully transparent partner like Renaissance brings you greater peace of mind.

Will the network’s loss ratio affect my results?

As we do our due diligence with all member applications, Renaissance includes only successful agencies with profitable books of business. As a result, our loss ratio is kept consistently solid.

How will being a member allow me to grow revenue?

New members of Renaissance Alliance experience an average of 15% in premium growth during their first year. Our members achieve this through multiple ways:

Agency Growth Partners work to identify & achieve your goals

Members are assigned a dedicated Agency Growth Partner (AGP) who acts as an extension of your team. Your AGP knows how to take advantage of Renaissance’s full range of services to power your agency’s key growth levers:

  1. Retention
  2. Account rounding
  3. Close ratio
  4. Lead generation
  5. Carrier optimization

Additionally, our AGPs serve to help you to create a customized strategy to drive and maximize your agency’s revenue.

“Our Agency Growth Partners are 100% focused on the premium and revenue growth of our members, continuously working with them to focus, refine, and accelerate agency performance and surface new revenue opportunities. They serve as trusted advisors to our member principals on matters that are vitally important to the long-term future of their agencies.”  – Robert Bondi, President & Chief Operating Officer, Renaissance Alliance

Helpful Technology & Analytics empower your agency

Renaissance’s full-time staff of technology professionals continually develops new, intuitive tools to provide better insights into your business. Put simply, we analyze your data to unlock new revenue opportunities. Some of the tools we currently offer include:

  • Dashboards: access to an easy-to-follow dashboard displaying unique agency metrics;
  • Arno: a member-exclusive mobile app that helps agency principals quickly find and flag opportunities for revenue growth, policy renewals, and goal setting and tracking;
  • Portico: a submission system that streamlines the application process and incorporates a comparative rater for small commercial business.

“Arno makes my agency money.  I noticed a policy cancelled for non-payment as it showed up as a lost account in Arno. I informed the CSR who called the client and got the policy reinstated. Even better: the CSR was able to cross-sell home.  It was a double win!  Without Arno we would have lost the client.” – Christopher R. Russo Jr., President and CEO, Russo Insurance Agency Inc., Medway, MA

Expanded Market Access provides more choices & premium

Access to more insurance markets allows agencies of all sizes to provide more options and the best coverage possible to their customers at competitive rates. As principals know, increased market access means more policies can be placed for more clients.

Renaissance members have access to 40+ standard carriers and over 100 markets. This group contains a selection of companies we have strategically selected as our core partners to ensure the best opportunities for members.

“Providing our member agencies access to more markets is one of our key value propositions, empowering them both to sell more and direct their premium to our core partners to maximize their revenue. A broader selection of markets means more choices for the client, increased satisfaction in customer service, and more premium for our members.” – Bill LaGram, Senior Vice President, Carrier Relationships, Renaissance Alliance

Agency Marketing tools help elevate your profile

Since branding and digital presence for insurance agencies are of utmost importance in this digital age, Renaissance offers tools and services to help. These include:

  • Maestro: Our powerful e-mail marketing tool leverages your agency’s data and enables cross-selling campaigns to be sent on a recurring basis. These automatic customer e-mail campaigns help increase retention and create opportunities to increase policy count among your clients.
  • Website development: We work with trusted vendors to design and build custom, affordable websites for our agency members. A dedicated project manager serves as your point person for all website creative services.
  • Social media: Renaissance provides reader-friendly content – such as blogs about seasonal safety and other customer-centric insurance topics – that our members can share on social media to drive traffic to their websites. We’ll teach you how to maximize your use of various social media platforms, regardless of your skill level.

“Marketing an agency is a full-time job for which most agents don’t hire. Our platform empowers agency principals to concentrate on selling, while our team handles the vital work of communicating with their customers and raising the agency’s profile.” – Will Shannon, Marketing Project Manager, Renaissance Alliance

Will I receive member discounts?

Renaissance Alliance offers a variety of discounted services to our member agencies, and we continuously secure discounts for new services for members as well.

Examples of discounts currently offered to members include technology services like agency management systems, outsourcing services to process business, agency E&O insurance, loss runs, consulting services, web development, graphic design and more. Additionally, value-added services such as training and help-desk technology support are included in your membership benefits.

The Bottom Line

Renaissance is different from other agency networks because we care about growing your premium as well as the overall valuation of your agency. We’re much more than a commission club; we’re a true partner in your agency’s growth.

We take pride in being clear about what we offer to our members. If you’d like additional information on how Renaissance Alliance membership can work for you, please contact us. We’d be happy to provide the answers you need.

How much can Renaissance help your agency grow? Calculate your agency’s projected cumulative earnings and valuation here: Calculate Your Growth Potential 

About Renaissance

Renaissance provides market access, placement services, technology and resources for independent insurance agents that want to grow their business and maximize efficiency.

More Insights

Subscribe

Start the conversation
Learn more about membership

Renaissance is a good fit for independent insurance agencies that:

NON-DISCLOSURE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

These Non-Disclosure Terms and Conditions (“Agreement”) govern the provision of information by Renaissance Alliance Insurance Services, LLC (“Renaissance”) to a prospective agency member (“Recipient”). Renaissance and Recipient Renaissance and Recipient are hereinafter referred to together as the “Parties,” and each may be referred to separately as a “Party.”

The Parties acknowledge that Renaissance may disclose to Recipient certain of Renaissance’s confidential, sensitive and/or proprietary information including, but not limited to, business, financial or technical information, in connection with the potential establishment and/or conduct of a business relationship or transaction between the Parties (the “Transaction”). In connection therewith, for good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which consideration are hereby acknowledged by Recipient, and as a condition of the provision of Confidential Information (as defined below) to Recipient, Recipient hereby agrees as follows:

  1. Confidential Information.Confidential Information” means any and all information provided by Renaissance to Recipient in any form, and at any time (including prior to or following the execution of this Agreement), including but not limited to any such information that (a) is related to Renaissance’s business, finances, financial information, pricing, business plans, profitability, projections, business or financial opportunities, investment strategies, other strategies, data, products, services, concepts, contacts, personnel, customers, vendors, prospects, intentions, formulas, methods, processes, practices, models, tools, computer programs, software, discoveries, inventions, know-how, negative know-how, business relationships, agreements (including this Agreement), intellectual property, trade secrets (whether or not patentable or copyrightable), trade secrets, or other confidential or proprietary information, (b) contains or is related to any communications, negotiations or proposals regarding the Transaction; (c) Recipient has either been informed, or reasonably should know, is confidential in nature; or (d) consists of or contains names, addresses or other information of any description relating to any of Renaissance’ member agencies or any of such member agencies’ customers or clients. Confidential Information shall also include any analyses, compilations, studies or other documents or materials prepared by Recipient or by any of its Representatives, that contain, rely upon, are derivative of or otherwise reflect any Confidential Information as described in the preceding sentence. The foregoing notwithstanding, Confidential Information shall not include any information which, at the time it is provided to Recipient; (i) is already known to Recipient, (ii) is then or later becomes available to the general public without violation of any requirement of confidentiality.
  1. Providing of Confidential Information. Renaissance may provide to Recipient any Confidential Information, in such manner and at such times as Renaissance may determine, to assist Recipient in evaluating, negotiating and carrying out the Transaction, but shall have no obligation to provide any, or any particular, Confidential Information to Recipient. Renaissance makes no, and disclaims any, representations or warranties regarding any Confidential Information it may provide, except as may be provided in any definitive documentation relating to a Transaction.
  1. Non-Use and Non-Disclosure; Representatives. Recipient agrees not to use any of Renaissance’s Confidential Information for any purpose other than for or in connection with the evaluation, negotiation, entering into or carrying out of a Transaction. Recipient agrees not to disclose any of Renaissance’s Confidential Information to any third party other than Recipient’s directors, officers, employees, affiliates, counsel, consultants, advisers, representatives and agents (collectively, “Representatives”) who have a reasonable need for the same in connection with the uses thereof permitted under this Agreement. Any such Representatives who are provided with any Confidential Information shall be instructed to maintain the same in confidence, and not to make any use or disclosure of the same other than as permitted under this Agreement. Recipient shall be responsible for any breach of this Agreement by any of its Representatives, to the same extent as though Recipient had committed such breach personally. Recipient agrees to use the same level of care in protecting the Confidential Information from unauthorized disclosure as it uses to protect its own confidential or proprietary information, and in any case will use no less than a commercially reasonable level of care in protecting all Confidential Information from unauthorized disclosure. The foregoing notwithstanding, Recipient shall be permitted to disclose so much of the Confidential Information as has been authorized for release by Renaissance in writing, to the persons and upon the conditions so authorized by Renaissance, in connection with the carrying out of the Transaction. Recipient shall not circumvent or seek to circumvent Renaissance’s negotiations with any third party, either by entering into discussions directly with such third party otherwise than on behalf of Renaissance, or otherwise. For purposes of this Section, each Party shall act in good faith and deal fairly with the other Party.
  1. No License; Return of Confidential Information. Recipient will not acquire any license or other rights whatsoever with respect to any of the Confidential Information by virtue of its disclosure to Recipient pursuant to this Agreement, or by virtue of any use thereof permitted hereunder. Recipient agrees to destroy or to return all Confidential Information to Renaissance, including both originals and all copies thereof (other than copies created as part of the routine backup of Recipient’s servers, or copies retained pursuant to a requirement of a governmental or regulatory authority, all of which retained copies shall be held confidential for so long as such materials are so retained), and to confirm the completion of such return or destruction to Renaissance in writing, promptly upon demand by Renaissance within the term of this Agreement. The term of this Agreement shall be for a period of five (5) years, commencing on the Effective Date set forth above. Either Party may terminate this Agreement at any time, upon written notice to the other Party, provided that the obligations of Recipient hereunder shall nevertheless survive for the period above stated, with respect to all Confidential Information provided prior to such termination.
  1. Orders Requiring Production. In the event Recipient receives a court subpoena, request for production of documents, court order or other requirement of a governmental agency to disclose any Confidential Information (a “Disclosure Requirement”), Recipient shall (unless prohibited by law) give prompt written notice to Renaissance thereof so that Renaissance may seek to challenge or limit the Disclosure Requirement. Recipient agrees to cooperate reasonably in any effort of Renaissance to limit or prevent any required disclosure of Confidential Information, provided that Recipient shall: (i) not be required to incur any expense in connection with such cooperation, and (ii) not be required to disobey any Disclosure Requirement. Recipient shall not be deemed in violation of this Agreement if it complies with any such Disclosure Requirement either after having provided Renaissance with notice thereof and a reasonable opportunity to contest the same, or if such notice is not permitted. Recipient agrees to (a) exercise reasonable efforts to disclose only the minimum amount of Confidential Information that Recipient is compelled to disclose, in the opinion of its legal counsel, and (b) request that confidential treatment (if legally permissible) will be accorded to the Confidential Information being disclosed.
  1. Injunctive Relief. Recipient acknowledges that the Confidential Information is confidential, and that disclosure or use of said information in violation of the terms of this Agreement would result in substantial and irreparable harm to Renaissance, the actual dollar amount of which damage would be impossible to determine. Accordingly, Recipient agrees that, in addition to any other remedies that may be available, in law, in equity or otherwise, Renaissance shall be entitled to seek injunctive relief against the actual or threatened breach of this Agreement or the continuation of any such breach by Recipient, without the necessity of proving actual damages and without posting bond. This provision shall not limit the right of Renaissance to seek actual damages or any other legal or equitable remedy for any breach hereof.
  1. Miscellaneous. This Agreement shall be construed in accordance with and governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its conflicts of laws principles. Any action or proceeding against either Party relating in any way to this Agreement shall be brought and enforced only in the Federal (to the extent appropriate jurisdiction exists) and State courts located in Cook County in the State of Illinois, and the Parties irrevocably submit to the jurisdiction of such courts in respect of any such action or proceeding, and irrevocably waive any objection to venue in such courts, including but not limited to any objection that such venue is inconvenient. This Agreement embodies the entire agreement of the Parties with respect to the subject matter hereof, and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements and understandings, oral or written. No amendment to this Agreement and no waiver of any provision hereunder shall be effective unless it is in writing and signed by an authorized officer of the Party against whom such amendment or waiver is asserted. No invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this Agreement shall affect the validity or enforceability of the remaining portions hereof. This Agreement shall be binding upon, and shall inure to the benefit of, each of the Parties and their respective successors and assigns. There are no intended third-party beneficiaries of this Agreement. This Agreement does not in any way bind either Party to enter into or continue any type of business relationship with the other. Nothing in this Agreement shall prevent Renaissance from at any time disclosing any of its Confidential Information to others or negotiating with others for any purpose whatsoever. Nothing contained in this Agreement shall be construed to constitute the Parties as partners, joint venturers, co-owners or otherwise as participants in a joint or common undertaking. Recipient’s indication of assent to this Agreement via electronic means shall be equally binding and effective as an original signature hereon, and shall be deemed duly and effectively delivered if so transmitted or provided.