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Millennials are the largest generation in the U.S. and are expected to control over half of the country’s buying power.
So it is no surprise that insurance marketing to millennials is a top priority for many insurance companies.
Selling Insurance to Millennials: The Death of The Local Insurance Agent?
With the rise of Lemonade, Insurify, Metromile and all the other D2C AI Insurance Platforms…
The way the younger generations go about buying insurance is changing.
These days it’s all about automation and self-service…
And given that most millennials have now reached the age where they’re buying houses, cars, and making more complex buying decisions in general…
If you can’t effectively market to them and win their business — you’ll be missing out on the largest section of insurance consumers for the next few decades.
But here’s some good news:
Even if you’re struggling to reach millennials with your marketing efforts right now…
The numbers behind how millennials approach insurance tell a much different story. Far from the ‘lost cause’ many others in our industry might have you believe.
Which means adding millions to your book over the next 3-5 years is still perfectly doable…
In fact, just a few small tweaks to how you service this new type of customer can result in some of the biggest year-over-year growth your agency has ever seen!
So let’s take a look at what these numbers mean…
Millennials & Insurance: The Numbers
First, let’s start with the obvious.
It is true that millennials are more than twice as likely as baby boomers to purchase insurance online. 27% vs. 11% according to Gallup.
But if you’re anything like me, that 27% might be a bit surprising.
I mean… only 27%? What gives?
That means that when selling insurance to millennials, roughly only 73% of this generation still prefer to purchase with an agent!
And research done by Liberty Mutual actually backs this up.
They found that 80% of millennials PREFER working with an agent when it comes to buying insurance…
This is because, contrary to what even many veteran agents assume (that all millennials want to do is ‘click here for the lowest price’…)
It turns out that they’re just as driven by finding comprehensive coverage as Baby Boomers and Gen X.
In fact… “lowest price” is actually the LEAST important factor for millennials when they’re considering where to go for insurance!
Liberty Mutual also found that only 34% of millennials consider themselves “insurance-savvy”…
And therefore there are millions of consumers who WANT your help in understanding their coverage, what to do to make a claim, and so on.
(A service that most D2C self-service platforms are not able to offer…)
So the demand for the personalized help a local agent offers is still as strong as ever…
However, there are a lot of agents who’re struggling to ‘crack the code’ on reaching this new generation of consumers.
Insurance Marketing to Millennials: Tips for Insurance Agents
So… Then What’s The Key Engaging Millennials?
Now, even though millennials do still value the human experience of working directly with an agent…
It’s no secret that HOW you must go about effectively making first contact with them is different.
Drastically different from how you might engage with Baby Boomers or Gen X’ers.
Let’s take a look at some of the key factors:
Millennials care less about the more ‘small-community’ type of factors that would’ve been important drivers for baby boomers.
For example, “convenient location” and “representing a well-known company” have decreased drastically in terms of importance…
And for millennials these are no longer the determining factors when choosing where to go for insurance.
At the same time, things like “social media engagement”, “online presence”, and “positive online reviews” have roughly doubled (in some cases more!) in importance — when compared to baby boomers.
Now I know, some of this might sound obvious…
But let me ask you this:
Is your agency building on these kinds of things NOW (like a modernized website and social media presence) to be ready to meet the needs of this new generation of consumers?
Or does your current way of doing business risk pushing them away — by missing the mark on how they prefer to be engaged?
Winning The Business of Millennials
On top of what it takes to engage millennials…
According to Gallup, there are several main “drivers” when it comes to ultimately winning their business too.
I want to highlight what I think are the 3 most important ones:
- Ease of Payment Services
- Ease of Managing Your Account
- Ease of Making Changes To Your Coverage
I believe these 3 are the most important ones because of what they show us about this generation’s behavior that will ultimately determine how we should strategize insurance marketing to millennials.
Yes — 80% of them still prefer to work with an agent at the time of purchasing their new Home, Auto, or Life policy…
But after that, they want as low maintenance of an experience as possible.
They want to simply log in and make payments, review their policies, and make the occasional changes all by themselves — then be on their way.
Basically… they don’t want to spend any more time on the phone than is absolutely necessary!
(Which also lines up with why cold-calling isn’t anywhere near as effective of a sales tactic as it used to be — with a University of Baylor study stating that these days only 1% of cold calls covert into appointments.)
So what does this mean for you?
Well, if you want to grow your agency during this next decade — by selling insurance to millennials (which is the largest generation in the United States right now)…
These are the 3 main concerns you MUST hit on in your messaging, outreach & marketing.
If it’s not clear to the millennial customer who landed on your website that the service you provide is quick, convenient, and hands-off…
Then to put it simply — you’re likely going to lose out on a lot of new business over the next few years.
Takeaways For You & Your Agency
Many veteran agents see meeting the needs of millennials as nothing but a massive headache.
But that’s a mistake.
Because if you’re one of the few agents out there who can adapt and provide a hybrid approach…
Where you attract millennials into your agency using the digital channels they’re used to — AND are there to provide genuine help and a personalized experience at the time of buying…
You’d be setting yourself up for a massive (and honestly, almost unfair) competitive advantage for the next 1-2 decades.
Because while the D2C platforms are convenient, they don’t offer the personalization millennials are looking for…
And all the “old-school” agents who refuse to modernize their way of doing business will slowly disappear — as they fail to engage this new generation of insurance buyers.
Next Steps…
I’m currently hosting a Free Training on my “Fully Covered” System…
To date, over 1,000 agents and counting have used this system to triple their books and scale towards a consistent 25+ P&C policies a week!
And if you’d like a way to combine the modern direct-to-consumer benefits millennials are looking for with the touch of a personal agent…
…then this training is for you!
Just click the button below to get instant access.
Nato owns Guajardo Insurance Agency. He learned the lessons he needed to learn so that his agency avoided the traditional ups and downs of lead flow and sales. He created Fully Covered to do just that. A methodology and system that provides predictable and automated online leads to insurance agents that have a passion for helping people.
Today, Nato runs his business together with his wife, Angelica, without the stress of finding the next client or worrying about if there is enough money in the bank. Plus, he gets to protect clients with our Agency and protect his peers through education and systems that took years to figure out on his own.
