Curious about niche insurance? Discover how offering unique policies can expand your client base, set your agency apart, and boost your expertise.
Demand for niche insurance is on the rise, but many insurance agencies are unprepared to meet the need in their communities. As an insurance agent, you may struggle to add these insurance products to your list of offerings. In this article, you’ll learn more about niche insurance and how to make this a part of the services your business offers.
What Is Niche Insurance?
Niche insurance is insurance that meets the needs of a small and specific segment of the population. Although these insurance products are in relatively low demand compared to other insurance products, offering niche insurance products can expand your insurance agency’s customer base while ensuring that your customers can access the insurance policies they want. Some examples of niche insurance policies include:
- Wedding insurance or special event insurance
- Pet insurance
- Cyber liability insurance
- Bicycle insurance
- Travel insurance
Niche insurance is a widening market with more policies offered regularly. There’s a policy for just about everything. UFO insurance, body part insurance, and collectibles insurance – are all examples of insurance products that are only offered to a small segment of the population and are not available through every insurance agency.
Your insurance agency can choose which types of insurance products you provide. The more insurance products your agency offers, the more it can distinguish itself from other insurance agencies in your area.
Perform Market Research
The first step to offering niche insurance in your area is performing market research. What types of policies are available? Who needs this insurance? What do the policies entail? What is the demand? Do you want your agency to offer these types of insurance products?
Answering these questions will help you get started. As you perform market research, consider reaching out to other insurance agents in your network who have had success with niche insurance products. Talking with agents with experience with these insurance products can give you the information you need to move forward.
Become the Expert
Once you’ve decided to offer niche insurance policies, it’s important to understand every policy that your agency offers. Be prepared to answer customer questions about each insurance product as they arise.
- Engage in continuing education. Stay educated about the different types of policies your agency offers. Read each policy, stay current with industry updates, and take classes to become the expert your customers expect you to be.
- Learn to talk to others about niche policies. Become practiced at talking about niche insurance products with your customers. Remember that niche insurance is a low-demand product, so you’ll get fewer questions and inquiries about each type of policy. This means you’ll get less practice discussing these policies with customers. To ensure that you’re ready for customer questions, engage in professional conversations about these policies. Reach out to agents you know and trust. Make them your sounding board. Be prepared to provide customers with valuable information about each insurance product.
- Research new insurance products as they become available. Stay up to date with the latest niche insurance products. Research new products as they become available, and make the decision to offer those products if they’re a good fit for your insurance agency and customer base.
- Start small. Limit the number of niche insurance products that your agency offers from the outset. This gives you time and bandwidth to become an expert on those insurance products. You can add more insurance products when you’re ready.
- Don’t make guesses. When customers ask questions about niche insurance policies that you don’t know how to answer, don’t make guesses. Promise to get back to your customers with the right answer in a timely fashion.
Position Your Agency As One That Offers Options
Once you’ve decided to expand into niche markets, it’s important to ensure that your customers know that these products are available through your agency.
- Post your offerings on your website. Update your website to show all your services, including niche insurance products that your agency now offers. Update your landing pages with educational, easy-to-read content about each type of insurance to ensure that your customers know what is offered and can decide whether it is right for them.
- Write about each new insurance product on your social media. Take time to post updates about your new insurance products. Spread the word through your social media to generate excitement and interest in niche products.
- Engage in content marketing about each type of insurance. Create content like videos and blog articles about each type of niche insurance product your agency offers. Use content marketing to answer customer questions and educate customers to help them find their agency when they need the specific type of niche insurance that your agency provides.
- Write about your insurance products in your newsletters. Writing about your new insurance products in your newsletter helps spread the word that this type of insurance is available to your customers and can boost product sales.
- Send emails about insurance products to your newsletter email list. Just as you write about niche insurance products in your newsletter, send emails to your targeted email list to educate them about your new insurance products.
Brand Your Company As One that Offers Options
Not every insurance agency sells niche insurance. Once your agency enters the niche insurance market, consider re-branding to reflect that your agency meets niche needs. Build your brand around providing customers with choices and meeting customers where they are. This will help boost the relatively low demand for niche insurance products.
Expand Your Offerings With Smart Partnerships
Performing market research, re-branding your company, and becoming an expert in niche markets are just a few things your company can do to offer niche insurance products.