Did you know there are an estimated over half a million motor carriers in the United States today? Searching for prospective new clients can be an overwhelming task. That’s a lot of opportunity for writing policies, but also a lot of opportunity to waste time chasing leads that don’t fall within your markets’ guidelines.
We recommend 2 actions to take first before contacting your ideal truck insurance prospects.
First, dive into the community and learn the lingo and types of insurance.
When you meet with truck company owners who have been in the business, you need to be able to “talk the talk”. Join groups like Motor Carrier Insurance Education Foundation (MCIEF), state and local truck associations, and surround yourself with experienced truck insurance specialists. Sign up for subscription lists for FMCSA updates, Commercial Carrier Journal, Transport Topics, and many others. Follow agents on LinkedIn who work for your company and other companies to find content that relates to your field so you can grow your breadth of knowledge.
Second, know your markets; the insurance carriers, Managing General Agents (MGAs), and underwriters.
To save time, know the specific underwriting criteria for those markets so that you can prequalify carriers for quote. Ask underwriting what type of motor carriers you should submit to them, including specific questions about:
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- Fleet size
- Commodities hauled
- BASIC Safety score parameters
- Radius of operation
- Many more…
Once you have the background knowledge in place and know your available markets, you will be ready to present yourself to sales leads. Running a simple search for insurers in your state or states of operation can yield hundreds or thousands of results, not all of which will be a good fit for your business. How best to sort through them? Renewal date—of course! But that’s not enough. So how can you combat this overabundance of prospects? The answer is surprisingly simple: filtering.
Using DOT Leads by Carrier Software, you can find pre-qualified truck leads by matching our filters to your geographical region and according to your markets’ underwriting criteria. Most insurance carriers will expect you to scrub your submissions based on by OOS inspection counts, clean inspection ratio, commodities hauled, crash injuries and fatalities, and crash to power unit ratio. We provide all the filters you need, and many more that are market exclusives.
Then, run your search.
By crafting a search that specifies qualities you do or don’t want in a client, you will automatically you specified will automatically filter out those leads, presenting you with only the most relevant leads. The opportunity cost of your time can be very valuable. Eliminate those prospects that don’t match your insurance carrier’s appetite. Focusing on the accounts “you can write” ultimately saves time and grows your book of business.