Trends in the insurance industry and the market situation, especially in the capital market and extremely low interest rates, require insurance companies to make certain adjustments in their operations. Clients and their needs are also changing. To offer appropriate solutions, Allianz has introduced an entrepreneurial approach to selling its services.
– An entrepreneurial mindset results in innovations and a constant search for ways to improve business, which also means continuous learning and investing in oneself. Selling insurance is becoming increasingly complex. To provide quality advice, and we want to be advisors and partners to our clients on such important topics as property, life, and health insurance or risk dispersion through diversification of financial investments, a lot must be known. In this way, through entrepreneurial agents, we are introducing an entrepreneurial approach not only into our sales but also into other parts of the system. Because to support our entrepreneurs effectively as a system, we must also think entrepreneurially, said Sales Director Sanja Bukić.
Part of the reason for this shift is also to increase productivity and further rationalize costs, she explained, noting that the liberalization of the auto insurance market and the significant drop in prices that accompanied it and still accompanies it, requires the entire industry to reduce costs to maintain profitability and thus the sustainability of operations. Allianz has been supporting employees from its sales department who wish to step into the world of entrepreneurship for several years, enabling them to establish their own agencies where they continue to do their job, but now as partners of their former parent company.
– Encouraged by the good experiences and results that have arisen from existing collaborations with entrepreneurs who were once our employees, last year we decided that the entrepreneurial approach should become the foundation of our sales, said Bukić, explaining that in the future they plan to encourage an entrepreneurial leap for all those who have the potential, privatize the entire sales network, expand the entrepreneurial network, continue to raise the level of knowledge and quality of services, and together with partners focus all efforts and activities on clients and their needs.
Ten months after the start of the major transformation of the entire sales model based on entrepreneurial agents, 190 insurance agency offices have been opened with 280 employees, who are experiencing an average premium growth of 15% compared to last year and are earning much more. Allianz aims to maintain this growth rate and redesign and package existing products, as well as create new ones.
– The advantage is precisely that partnership relationship in which there is no superior and subordinate, where the success of each party depends on mutual initiative and focus on growth. Through this model, we have introduced even more desire for business improvement, adaptation, and the search for new sales methods, but also a desire for continuous learning and acquiring new knowledge, and, which is particularly important, even more focus on listening to clients’ needs and caring for them and their interests. This is a model in which both parties need to be simultaneously more demanding and proactive, and the benefits are felt not only by us and our entrepreneurs but also by clients, believes Allianz’s Sales Director.
Ana Morić Matić became an entrepreneurial agent at the beginning of November last year with the support of Allianz as her parent company and former employer. She now runs the agency AM consulting and representation d.o.o., which deals with selling Allianz insurance products and helps clients with contracting insurance, reporting and quickly resolving claims, as well as advising and risk dispersion during investments.
