What is Benchmarking? It is a management tool in which an independent agent can analyze the agency’s financial and operating results against other agencies within its own peer group. This article explores a FREE service where you can add your own data and see how it compared to your peers.
Our “top rate” programmers have been hard at work to make Benchmarking even more advance and easier to use. Each October for more than 20 years, Agency Consulting Group, Inc. has generated the year’s Composite Groups to allow independent agents a source of reference for statistical comparison.
What is Benchmarking? It is a management tool in which an independent agent can analyze the agency’s financial and operating results against other agencies within its own Peer Group. The data for the Composite Groups derives from information that agencies ranging in all sizes and agencies around the country enter into our website.
The information is totally confidential. No one has access to the data you input. Your agency identifier gives you the password right to view the live Composite Groups as they change daily is segregated from the data you input. You can get a Quick Analysis that instantly compares your agency financials and operating results against your Peer Group and post the results back to you immediately by return e-mail.
Here is what has changed in Benchmarking – The Next Generation:
State Associations may sponsor Composite Groups for their own association that permits you to compare your Liquidity Ratios, Revenue stream and individual expense lines against your own local Peer Group of agency your size within your own state.
If you don’t have time to input all of the data at one time, your information will be stored (automatically) on your own computer until you return to the Benchmarking site (a part of the Agency Consulting Group, Inc. website) at which time it is automatically re-entered to allow you to continue where you stopped previously.
You create your own password, known only to you, that gives you permission to enter the Composite Group site to view your Composite Group for 365 days after you have input your data. No one may view the Live Composite Groups as they are being updated daily without a password.
If you are not a part of a sponsored State Association or Affinity Group (including several insurance companies), you may continue to enter your data and be compared to your National Peer Group.
We have included a Measuring Stick on the input form that tells you how much of the data you have completed and how much more you have left to complete.
Please consider joining the thousands of agencies who are participating in this Composite Group study for the insurance agency industry. Soon the Composite Group results will ONLY be available to PIPELINE subscribers and Benchmarking participants. Don’t be left out of this valuable tool to gauge your performance against the insurance agency industry.
To take advantage of this FREE SERVICE, simply go to www.agencyconsulting.com and click on the Benchmarking Link on the left. To help you enter your agency’s data, you will need your past two years Operating Statements and Balance Sheets. In about 20 minutes, you will have access to the composite group that best reflects the size and geographic location of your agency.
Call us at 800-779-2430 or visit us at www.agencyconsulting.com or write us at info@agencyconsulting.com to learn more about how to benchmark your agency.
Reprinted from the PIPELINE, the national newsletter for agency principals. The PIPELINE is published by Agency Consulting Group, Inc., a leading consulting firm for independent agents in the U.S. for over 20 years. Call 800-779-2430 for information about the content of any of these articles or PIPELINE subscription Information:
E-mail: info@agencyconsulting.com
Website: www.agencyconsulting.com.
Copyright 2010 by Agency Consulting Group, Inc. Used with permission.