Travelers Insurance Co. Announces New Distribution of Products

This morning, Travelers Insurance Company put out a web cast to Independent Agents announcing their new Personal Insurance Distribution Channel. Forgetting how their company was built, Travelers runs the risk of harming relationships with current Independent Agents.

Many of these insurance companies believe selling direct, via the internet, is the Holy Grail of insurance marketing. Despite recent moves for companies like Gieco and Esurance that have purchased agencies or store front offices. For some reason, when they (Travelers) look at these Internet insurance companies as successful examples, they some how miss the fact that when millions of dollars are spent on television advertising, people are more inclined to buy. It's not the distribution channel that makes the difference, but the gross advertising expenditure provided by consumer premiums that impacts the consumer psyche.

Below are some bullet points of their announcement - enjoy!

•Travelers Announced they are "Going direct, online", selling their personal insurance products in conjunction with the Independent Agent Channel.

•They plan on keeping the pricing structure the same. Although, in the future, they will have the ability to raise and lower prices for direct purchases based on loss or profitability of the business written.

•Travelers will not use existing customer data that has been provided by Independent Agents for direct marketing purposes. Even if the client does not purchase from an Independent Agent or is no longer a client, Travelers will not use any of the information to market their direct program.

•If a customer of an Independent Agent calls Travelers direct, Travelers intends to push the contact, file notes and information back to the agent.

•BOR's will be accepted by agents, so moving a client from the Direct Program to an Independent Agent will be accepted.

•Travelers claims to be committed to the Independent Agent.

•Did they buy another company? No discussion about acquisitions.