Insurance Brokers are Sexy (Part 1)

By Steven Handmaker
Posted: October 6, 2014

Let me replay for you a conversation I’ve had about a thousand times over the past 20 years.

Other person: “What kind of business are you in?”
Me: “Insurance. I work for an insurance brokerage.”
Other person: “Oh. Interesting.”

The thing is, I can see it in their eyes. They have absolutely no idea whatsoever what an insurance brokerage is. No immediate, oh I know what you do. No, in fact, I can see that what their really thinking is insurance, eeewww.

Now If I’d have said, “Insurance. I’m an insurance agent,” they probably would have had at least some concept of my business. If I’d have said “insurance company” or “claims adjuster” something might have registered. In each case they’d probably still be thinking eeewww, but at least they’d generally get what we do.

Amazingly, few lay people make an immediate connection to the real nature of an insurance broker’s work. And this is despite the fact that insurance brokers in the U.S. employ well over 900,000 people and account for over $200 billion in revenue, it seems nobody has a real clue what we’re all about. Well, not nobody. If you own a business you know. If you’re a CFO or a risk officer of a business, you know. If you’re the head of HR, you know. If you’re a family member of someone who works in the brokerage industry, you know (maybe). But that’s it. Nobody else knows. I’m convinced.

The crazy thing to me is if I’d have said “Consulting. I work for a consulting firm,” most people would say, “Oh. That’s cool.” Now I can’t think of anything more ambiguous than saying I work for a “consulting” firm. For all they know, I could be consulting about fungus, which would probably not rank so high on their cool factor.

It seems to me insurance brokers and the insurance brokerage industry at large has a serious identity problem. And that’s really a shame because I think if the lay public was made to understand the impact of our work, we’d have far greater respect and recognition. Young people may actually desire to come work in our industry as opposed to just “falling” into it, which is most often the case.

So what do I want people to inherently think of when they hear the term insurance brokerage? What do I believe our industry identity should be? I’m going to save that for my next post, but I’ll give you one hint: it’s pretty darn sexy.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Handmaker

Steven Handmaker is Chief Marketing Officer at Assurance. He serves as a member of Assurance’s executive management team and is responsible for the company’s marketing, communications, branding and digital media efforts. As Assurance’s top creative professional, he provides counsel on all strategic initiatives and acts as the primary writer and editor of key company messages. Steven graduated from Illinois State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations and Political Science.

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