Google the phrase “business consultant” and more than 21 million hits pop up available for review. Granted some of these are descriptions of what a business consultant is from Wikipedia and other such sources, but the vast majority of possible sites are links to websites for actual business consultants. Further, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics states that management, scientific and technical consulting services is currently the fastest growing industry in America.

Do we really need so many people telling us how to run our business? Aren’t there scores of books that pretty much give us the same information? Let’s be honest, we pretty much have the option to ignore either the books or the consultants (and in some cases both).

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting that hiring a consultant is a bad thing; in fact bringing in an outside expert with a broader view can be very helpful to any business. But to be useful, the consultant must be the right fit for the right purpose to identify the real problems so they can offer the right solutions to the business that hired them. This leads me to the hypothesis of this post:

Agents and brokers are NOT hiring the right kind of outside expertise.

Let’s be honest, the purposes of any insurance agency are pretty simple: find suspects; convert suspects into prospects; analyze insurable risk exposures; formulate the correct insurance coverages; and service the business to the highest level. That’s it!

This simple process is often complicated by agency management systems, regulations, processes and humans having bad hair days; but the core (main) purpose of any insurance agency is TO PROVIDE THE CORRECT INSURANCE PROTECTION. The true purpose and job of any agency really is as simple as this.

Think about it, if you properly analyze the insured’s risk exposures, design the correct insurance plan and manage the program well – the potential for an errors and omissions claim is greatly reduced. Additionally, morale among the staff improves because the correct job was done up front and there is not as much time spent patching and repairing a poorly designed program. Also producers and the agency can become known as trusted advisors rather than just a peddler of insurance (which seems to be the direction most agencies are going).

So, if constructing the proper protection is so important and has so many positive effects, why don’t agencies hire coverage consultants to help them accomplish their core purpose? Could it be that many agents mistakenly believe they don’t need this kind of help because they think they already have a strong handle on coverage?

Every insurance professional must admit that even the most technically proficient agent misses exposures and overlooks coverage gaps. And any failure to ferret out these exposures and find the gaps means that the agent has failed at his or her core purpose. Failing at the core purpose up front creates a lot of problems on the back end.

Proper insurance program development improves efficiency; and greater efficiency means more time to work on what matters - like finding new business. New business means growth (even in today’s market); growth leads to greater rewards for the agency and its staff. All this from a properly designed insurance program.

What’s better for the agency AND its clients: training and coaching towards learning how to designing a proper insurance protection program (with all its advantages); or training on how to better and more fully utilize the agency management system? Clients don’t care if you know how to input information into the system, but they do care if they have a loss that is not covered by the insurance policy they paid good money to purchase. Get the coverage right, then worry how to input it in the system; don’t major on the minor – focus on the agency’s core purpose.

Remember, insurance protection is vitally important. If the agent poorly designs the protection, he could ruin the life and/or business of the insured. This is not hyperbole, insurance protection is that important.

Where, then, can such expertise be found or developed. I’ve already mentioned one possibility – an independent insurance consultant working with and on behalf of the agency to help them develop a technically sound insurance protection program. Agencies can also work to develop such competency in house, but they must be willing to invest a lot of time in this process; or they can buy the talent by hiring a person specifically for this role.

Sadly, such technical expertise is not going to come from simply attending required continuing education (CE) classes. In fact, many of the classes being offered for CE have been dumbed down so much that little real learning occurs (especially when it’s a self-study online CE course). Such technical expertise only comes from training programs that go deeper than the surface of a policy, digging into the finer details, giving the student a view of the depth of coverage issues. (I’m not going to self-promote here.)

Hiring outside expertise is a blow to any agency owner’s ego; it means admitting that they don’t know everything or that there is a weakness within their agency (their baby). But once the true weakness is identified, the agency should do what’s best for itself and clients and get the needed help – in spite of the ego. But again, make sure it’s the core needs that are addressed by the consultant, not the symptoms.

Once the agency is an expert at performing its core purpose (providing correct protection), then it can focus on the processes and human interactions that surround and support that main, core function. But until it is an expert at designing proper coverage and protection programs, the agency should consider bringing in outside expertise.