Turning a Law Firm Hotline into a Measurable HR Risk Program
There’s real value for our insureds when they use the Zywave resources, which is why we want more people using it.
BACKGROUND
Berkley Select, part of the WR Berkley company, writes management and professional liability coverage for private and nonprofit organizations. They service the small to mid-sized market, covering employment practices liability, D&O, crime, fiduciary, and professional lines for lawyers and accountants. For years, the agency relied on a law firm partners’ portal for HR and employment risk support, a common model in the industry. But it meant reactive, attorney-driven advice rather than proactive, self-service resources policyholders could use on their own.
- Saves producers' time
- Automates cold outreach
- Strong customer support
- Hands-on, responsive Zywave support throughout the pilot
- Collaborative implementation process with active iteration and improvement
- Strong long-term potential with a clear roadmap for continued growth
- Saves producers 10+ hours per week
- Reduces manual prospecting effort
- Potential to generate new business with minimal producer time investment
OPPORTUNITY
The law firm relationship gave policyholders somewhere to call with employment law questions, but not much else. There was no real online portal, no fresh content, and no way to track engagement to show leadership the value of the program at renewal time. Lisa Rowland, the marketing lead for Berkley Select, wanted a partner that could deliver an active content library, a hotline backed by proactive resources, a self-service portal that would build habit and engagement among policyholders, and reporting detailed enough to build a defensible ROI case.
SOLUTION
About three years ago, Berkley Select brought on Zywave’s HR and employment risk management resources, giving policyholders access to a content library, an HR hotline, and LMS training they can use directly instead of routing every question through outside counsel. The shift also gave Rowland’s team something they hadn’t had before: visibility. Reporting on hotline calls, portal logins, and course completions turned scattered activity into a measurable program.
With Zywave, you can now run reports.
We can get pretty granular, down to which accounts used and which services they used. If someone called the hotline five times over the last year or downloaded pieces of content, it associates value to the activity. It makes it easier to build an ROI business case and show the companies using it the dollar value they received from us.
IMPLEMENTATION
Rowland’s team leans on its Zywave account manager to keep pace with a fast-moving compliance landscape. When new state employment laws are announced, Zywave has often already begun building supporting content and training. When a gap does appear, the team can submit a real-time request and see it addressed quickly. That responsiveness matters most in January, when a wave of new state laws typically takes effect and brokers and policyholders alike need fast, dependable guidance. As adoption has grown, Rowland’s team has also identified new opportunities, including automated activation emails and more consistent policyholder communication about the resources already available to them.
We went to [our account manager], to ask if there were courses available, because we were getting questions from our brokers and policyholders about a new law in the state of Washington, and they needed some training. They [Zywave] were building it out and they’ve done a really good job at keeping up with relevant content. They’re not just waiting for phone calls through the hotline but providing content we can share proactively.
RESULTS
The numbers now tell a clear story. LMS courses that once required an outside vendor, at roughly $50 per employee, are available directly through the platform, saving policyholder companies thousands of dollars each time a team completes state-mandated training. Every hotline call that resolves a question without engaging a law firm represents a comparable savings. And with usage reporting down to the account level, Rowland’s team can point to real activity, not just anecdotes.