What’s your flavour? Comparing insurance brokers: A comprehensive guide

You’re considering a change of insurance broker but don’t know where to start. This can often be a daunting and overwhelming place to be, with so many options and things to consider. How do you compare the services of your current broker with the others you are considering? Here is a helpful guide, broken down into the sort of considerations you should make when choosing between insurance brokers.

Experience and knowledge

Do your own research! Find out who would be handling your insurance policy and look them up. They will be working on your behalf, so you consider it as a mini recruitment process!
Ask some questions about the insurance market and their approach to your policy and see what they say. Can they describe the current state of the market trends they are seeing? How are they going to approach your renewal.

What questions are they asking you about your business? Are you comfortable with the level of technical expertise they are showing you in the conversation and are they able to answer all your questions?

If they have LinkedIn, what does their CV look like? Are you looking for a subject matter expert in your specific business area or a wider generalist who has covered a few different products in their career? What is their employer history and how long have they been working at their current brokerage? Consider if you want a broker that has worked in your industry or even one who has taken the ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ approach and previously worked for an insurer before becoming a broker. What can they tell you about their qualifications or experience?

Service and locality

How do you want to interact with your insurance broker? Ask some questions around how they normally interact with clients. Does this fit in with your expectations? Do you know how often you would you like to speak to your broker and via which medium?

For a lot of people, interacting with their insurance broker purely via email or phone is the preferred way to go, as they would rather just get it done in the background at renewal. For others, they would rather the personal touch to build a direct relationship with their broker, with virtual or in-person meetings. Would you like to meet your insurer at all? Is this something they could accommodate?

Clearly, the more in-person you would like your broker interactions to be, the more their location is going to be important. If they are based too far away and you would like regular in-person catch ups that could be difficult to manage.

Also consider what information they will require from you for your quote and how this is retrieved. Will they help you in getting together the technical or hard to reach information? Can you provide this information online? Will you be able to fill out a more convenient, shorter form in the future for renewal? What can they tell you about their claims handling service?

Often insurance brokers offer auxiliary perks for their clients when appointed, such as access to industry-relevant seminars, risk management advice or even contract-review services. Is this something that you would look to use? What do their perks look like for you? Do they have close relationships with insurers who offer their own perks to their policyholders that would be of benefit for you?

Insurer access

A knowledgeable broker who offers a great service is one important piece, but getting the insurer quotes is another. Not all brokers will be able to source quotes from all the insurers you would like to look at your business. Ask the broker generally around their insurer market access and, if you have any insurers, you would really like a quote from, if they can get a quote from them specifically. You might also want to understand if your broker is sourcing a quote directly from the insurer or via a sub-contracted arrangement with another brokerage (often referred to as a ‘sub-broker’ or a ‘wholesale broker’.)

Obviously, the wider the access they have to insurers the more potential options you will have for your insurance.

Fee structure

There are several different ways in which an insurance broker earns their income. This is usually either a commission paid on your premium or a separate fee paid directly to them.
How does the broker charge for their services and at what level? How does this compare to the other brokers you have spoken to and are you comfortable with the level you would be paying for the service you would be receiving?

Is the broker flexible on charging by fee or commission to your preference?

How having a PomeloScan profile can help your business

PomeloScan gives you the opportunity to learn from others’ experiences of an insurance broker before you appoint them. You can specifically see how others have rated a broker for all of the above talking points and read reviews from real clients of the insurance broker. You can get a direct feel of their offering before moving ahead with an appointment and then share your own experiences for others afterwards! Start your search here.