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What is value added? Value added refers to the extra features such as an item of interest, work product, service, or person, which goes beyond standard expectations and provides something “more” with little to no cost. Value-added features provide a competitive edge to companies who would otherwise have to pay for expensive products to gain an edge. In the insurance industry, there are thousands upon thousands of agencies and companies, so it’s thus extremely important for a small independent agency, like mine, to have a value added proposition.

The importance of a value added service is to create separation from you against everyone else.  I believe that small independent insurance agencies should all have something more than just stating their value added service. I try to remind myself and others in the in insurance industry that every time we sell a policy, we are being paid to give great service, so great service as nothing to do with the value added. Value added services gives your agency significant advantages over other agencies and other businesses that do not have a value-added proposition. A value added proposition will help you generate more business and furthermore allow your insurance agency to grow and retain business. The retention of business in the insurance industry should be a key focus for all independent agencies because of it’s significant effect on the agency’s bottom line. Since the insurance industry is experiencing a difficult market currently, one focus of mine is always to remember this: if the hard market effects your bottom line by 10% due to the increases at years end, and my gross revenues grows by 15%, we as independent insurance agencies have to remember that our actual growth is only about 5%.

I want to share several key value added services that our insurance agency does on a daily basis. Number one: we have on our website a section called our partners page. A partners page is where we ask our commercial clients to allow us to share their businesses coupons and or any other discounts that they have offered out to the public on to our website in which we share with all of our personal lines clients. Number two is that our partners page creates a back link for each commercial client, meaning that we are assisting them in their own search engine optimization. Number three relating to our partners page is about how we create a video showing and sharing what that business is all about.  It furthermore allows for personal lines clinets to see the value in the business that we are sharing with them. As for our YouTube videos, and channel: we create the business videos to provide the commercial clients with media that they can share on their Facebook page and or any other social media website. In essence, we want to become a business partner with other small business or business that we may have. Number five, we also like to create QR codes for the businesses that we interact with. This is just another way we offer a value added proposition, to help promote, share, and educate the social media world with what our insured’s small businesses have to offer. Number six, we create a video every two weeks updating our small business owners with the newest information on social media and or on advertisement for small businesses. This essentially helps create a business partnership that we refer to as a “trusted advisor.”

As an independent agent, I am trying to create a separation from my agency to other agencies or carriers. As an independent insurance agent, it is critical to realize that as our small business clients grow, our agency grows with them, so why not take the time invest back them?  Here at Paradiso Insurance, our motto is “give to keep”- it’s always important to give without expectation.