The insurance market is shifting. Rates are flattening, options are expanding, and clients who felt settled six months ago are starting to pay closer attention. In that environment, the relationships that hold up tend to be the ones grounded in something more substantial than price alone.
Trust, though, is harder to measure than a renewal rate, and the signals that an account is drifting often show up long before anything changes on paper.
Zywave’s Trusted Advisor Audit walks through seven signals that help P&C insurance professionals assess where their client relationships are strong and where there may be room to grow. Here’s a look at two of them, providing a small sample of the practical, actionable framework the full audit provides.
Proactive Client Outreach: Are You Reaching Out Before Clients Have a Reason to Call?
Think about your last few meaningful conversations with a client. Who started them? Most agent-client relationships settle into a predictable rhythm. Things are quiet until renewal approaches, then everything accelerates. The problem with that pattern is that it positions you as reactive, someone your clients hear from when the calendar requires it, not when it matters.
According to the Liberty Mutual/Safeco 2024 Agent-Customer Connection Study, 73% of customers want to hear from their insurance provider more often than just at renewal. Yet only 31% of agents consider proactivity a strength. That gap is where relationships narrow, and where competitors find room to engage.
Reaching out between renewals with a relevant insight, a regulatory update, or a quick check-in on how the business is changing does more than strengthen the relationship. It shifts your role from transactional to advisory. Clients who hear from you consistently bring you into decisions earlier, share information more freely, and think of you first when they need guidance.
What Are Clients Telling You Without Being Asked?
At renewal, some clients walk in ready to share everything: new locations, leadership changes, near-miss incidents. Others hand over the same application they’ve used for years.
When clients proactively share what’s changed in their business, it’s a signal that they see you as a trusted partner, not just a policy processor. When they don’t, you’re often building coverage strategy around an incomplete picture.
McKinsey’s research on insurance customer experience points to the same dynamic: many client relationships remain surface-level, with limited ongoing engagement beyond transactional touchpoints. In a soft market, that surface-level positioning leaves you vulnerable. If a competitor is the first to learn about a client’s expansion, restructuring, or emerging risk, they might just show up as the more informed advisor.
A consistent cadence of business-focused check-ins opens the door to the kind of ongoing information flow that makes you genuinely useful between renewals.
How to Assess Your Insurance Advisor Relationships: The Full Trusted Advisor Framework
Proactive outreach and information access are just two of the seven signals covered in the Trusted Advisor Audit. The full framework walks through each one with context, observable patterns to watch for, and practical steps to act on what you find.
If you’re looking to take stock of where your client relationships stand as pricing softens and competition increases, it’s a useful place to start.
Download the Trusted Advisor Audit to see where you stand across all seven signals.
