Transforming Insurance Customer Service Models: An In-depth Study on the Role of Comprehensive Support, Policy Advisory, and Claims Assistance in Building Customer Trust and Retention

Abstract

The Insurance Brokers and Agents of the West (IBA West) is an insurance trade organization based in California. The purpose of this qualitative single case study is to explore what support is provided by the IBA West to individual licensees who purchase their client service agreement and abide by the agreement, with the hope to prevent losing commission income from the termination of the agency contract with a managing general agency by an insurance company client. The problem is that if a retail insurance agent can no longer service the policies following the termination of the agency contract with an MGA, the insurance company can then move the policies to its direct writer channel and effectively cut off the agent from the policy commission revenue. Noting that policies only renew once a year or, at most, quarterly for certain commercial lines, this problem is still expected to significantly affect the cash flow of loss-prevention agents and ultimately the trip insurance producers and IBA West itself. The critical knowledge gap is that the IBA West has no previous research to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in the perspective of participating licensees. The primary research question is what comprehensive support is provided by the IBA West to individual licensees who purchase their client service agreement and abide by the agreement after the termination of the agency contract with an MGA by an insurance company client to retain their book of business? The sub-questions involve an exploration of what specific services and communication are included in the policyholder claim assistance, what information and direction are offered in the Alliance’s support for arbitration, and what advocacy action is taken on behalf of the participating licensees. The conceptual framework includes the theoretical foundation of wealth management, fiduciary duty and client interest, client acquisition cost, and the history and background of the IBA West, the nature and description of the comprehensive support, and a detailed chain of events after the MGA contract.