In last week’s eMarketing Minute, Tim Sawyer of Astonish sat down with Ron Assisie from The Horton Group. They discussed how his agency has been able to keep client services personal in a 15-minute-or-less world, with a focus on showing how insurance is not just a commodity.

Ron used to have his own agency, which was very successful, but is now part of a larger organization. Tim asked him during the transition, how he was able to establish that insurance is not a commodity, how he was able to maintain that personal touch, and how Horton was able to differentiate itself from some of the direct writers and other players in the space given Horton’s size.

Ron explained that he tries to promote amongst all of his staff members the concept of looking at every client that walks through the door as their only client. In addition, he says he strongly disagrees with the fact that all insurance agencies are the same. Many consumers think that by going online, they will receive the same kind of treatment from all insurance agencies. This is not true at all because insurance is not a commodity.

Ron then gives the example of Hurricane Sandy. All of the people who suffered or were victims of the disaster wondered if they had the right policy, and didn’t care about the 15 minutes. Those who had policies with quality independent agencies saw the difference, had no questions in their minds, and they knew they were taken care of and covered.

The Horton Group has been able to create a great value proposition with their clients by leveraging the 20-25 quality “A rated” companies they have, the automation, and the 25 different staff people they have with hundreds of years of experience combined. Their main goal is to give that personal touch while offering the choices and taking a risk management approach to make certain that when the uncertain happens, no one is worried whether they have the right coverage or not.

Tim rounds out the conversation by making an important point. He wants other insurance owners to focus on getting the message of personal service out to the public. This is because a lot of agencies tend focus internally and think, “We have all these great attributes,” but they don’t necessarily do the greatest job getting that out in front of people. Driving that value proposition is key, and Horton has really focused on that and has done a great job of doing that.