How To Get Referrals From Insurance Agents and Build a Pipeline of Roofing & Storm Damage Leads

Hey guys, Adam here, the roof strategist. And today I have a hot, hot video for you and that is all about networking and getting referrals from insurance agents when it comes to storm damage claims on roofs, siding claims, all that stuff, anything storm damage related, you can get a pipeline of referrals from insurance agents. Now before we begin, I want to tell you this in two different things that are really important to note as we begin. First, pay attention very closely into how to approach these deals because you cannot go the traditional route of saying, hey, I'll pay you per referral and all that stuff. It is illegal. You cannot pay an agent to refer you business from their clients because they're insured by them. You can't do it, alright? And it puts a really bad taste in your mouth. If you even offer it. People are going to think you're slimy and it will not go over well. Okay? Do not do that. Second, you have to pad these relationships and communicate clearly and have very clear expectations what you can do, what you can't do. And you have to approach those customers that come by way of referral very carefully because as we know, you may get on a roof where there's marginal damage. You suggest filing the claim, the adjuster says no damage. Then the insurance suggests agent calls you, says, adam, you went out to my customer's house, I asked for a free inspection. You said there was damage. It just said there was nothing. I don't believe anything you say. Right? By the way, true story, this happened to me. You have to manage those expectations early out of the gate, proactively, which I'll share how in this video. So just with those couple disclaimers in place, this is a advanced strategy that is usable by anyone. And at the end of the video, I'm going to show you a couple of cheat sheets on how you can start using this program right away. With the information in my marketing battle pack that I recently released, there's an insurance agent networking and referral campaign and a bunch of emails and letters you can use. And I'm going to explain kind of how those work. So let's get back to it. When it comes to insurance agents, they have a need. Their need is to have their customers after a claim, enjoy the service, enjoy the experience and then renew. And the reason I'm sharing this is the more we know what someone else wants, the more we can present our pitch. The insurance agent doesn't care what we want. They don't care about how much money we make. All they care about Is themselves. Guys, this is sales. Same thing that our customers are thinking. So if we know that our agent over here, his number one risk, losing his client. So if they had a hail claim and it goes poorly, they're like, I hate this insurance company. I'm switching. That's the number one reason people switch. They didn't have a good experience with the claim. Well, that and rates going up, obviously. But that's a big trigger. It's like, man, my agent wasn't there for me. The company didn't take care of me. I'm out. So when we know that, we know that the agent, by providing good service and from a good relationship, helps them renew clients. It's a win win. So it's important that if we get these referrals from an agent, we have absolute slam dunk service, which you should all the time, but you need to really, really have slammed on service when you're getting referrals from the agent. Okay? Now the second thing is setting those expectations with the agent up front and say, listen, by the way, I've done this. I got a ton of ton of referrals from. Turned out to be my own agent. Because he knew that I was in the field doing this stuff. And I had just met down, I switched my homeowners insurance to him and I sat down, he was like, what do you do? And I told him, I said, hey, if you ever have any issues come up, let me know. I'd be happy to hop out there before anybody and give you an hon opinion. So when that first one came in, which is, by the way, how I figured this whole thing out, because it was on accident, I told him, I said, listen, Joe, like, I want to just level with you. Hail damage is subjective, right? You look at your car, it's like ding, ding on metal, black and white. Anyone can see it. It's there. It's not right. But when it comes to shingles, it is subjective on what. What indicates substantial damage. Compromised shingle. Every insurance company, by the way, has different rules, and every adjuster interprets those rules differently. So what I will do is give you my best assessment. And I will always lean on the favor of the customer. And I'll communicate openly with you. If there's borderline stuff, it's in the customer's best interest to make that claim. Because no matter what, the longevity of their roof is decreased from damage. Now, it doesn't mean that that damage is enough for the insurance to cover it. So I'll communicate this with you, okay? So I'VE had some roofs where we get on there and it's like clear, no brainer damage. The roof should be totaled and it's denied. And other ones that I'm up there scratching my head being like, I don't even really see the hail damage. But the adjusters approve it. So you have to educate them that the outcome could be all over the board so they're not caught off guard and they don't feel like you did anything unethical because even if you were doing everything on the up and up, which of course you should be, you don't know what the outcome might be and, and you don't want them to like be like that snake. He told me that there was hail damage and there was none. So you got to pad the relationship. Alright, so now that we got that out of the way, we got to talk about the how. Here's how you do this. First, talk to your own agent. If you're not a homeowner yet or you have renters insurance, talk to that agent. If you're a business owner, talk to your own agent who's writing your business coverage. It's super important to network, let them know what you do and offer to help. Now when you sign a deal, it is critical for this to work. You ask for the insurance agent's name, email and phone. If they don't have it, you can look it up. Everyone's got the Internet. I could search like Joe whatever, State Farm Insurance on Google and I'm going to get his info. Ideally, you get the info from the homeowner or better yet, you ask for an email introduction. Now this is where my material in the marketing battle pack comes to life because I want to introduce myself and say, hey, I'm serving our mutual, a mutual customer client, your client, Peggy sue at so and so address and they had a claim on the roof for storm damage and I'm helping them out. Now I'm only reaching out because I'd like to make this process as easy for you, keep you in the loop. And I've found that by helping agents look like a hero, they get higher renewals and everyone's happy. So, so when you state that they're really stoked on working together with you, they're like, hey, this guy's great, he's coming out, he's reaching out to help me. And the presentation to your homeowner is, hey, I'm just going to reach out to your agent because I want to make this easy for you and for him or her and they say, great. So when you make that connection, it is gold. All you do is provide value. I'll keep you up to date every step of the way. If you'd like, just reply, let me know. I'll let you know when it's produced, when it's done, what's going on? Again, all you're doing is communicating. Now you're probably wondering, like, great, Adam, you have the insurance agent info. You reached out. Well, how do you get referrals? That's where this little hook comes in. When we think about what the agent really wants, it's good service. They want to look like a hero. They want to win more business, and they want to keep their retention high. They don't want people to leave to someone else. So what we offer is priority service and complimentary inspections on any one of their friends, family, clients, or clients that they refer and that you'll handle it the same way. And you can even, I've done this with one agent where I've said, listen, I will happily report to you before I report to anyone else and let you know what I find. Now, it does nothing more than just help them feel good, help them feel confident, help them feel in control. And that's okay by me. But when you have a storm area that obliterates 20, 30, 40, 50,000 homes, there's a good chance that one agent might be writing 200 policies, 300, 400, whatever, in that area. So if you step up with a level of professionalism and service, you will blow them away. And naturally, you become the go to of choice. Because once you do one job for them and you make them happy and the customer is happy, they want their customer or their clients who they're writing their insurance to, have a good experience well, because if the roofer sucks, they're often like, oh, this claim was a headache. I couldn't handle it, and no one was there to help. So you wow them and you win the business. So here's how my program works. Again, everything's inside the marketing battle pack. There's a link in the description below. My website will show you what's included, and I do have a video on that as well. So here's how it works. You get the agent's info, you pop over the email, you introduce yourself, the value you bring and why you're introducing yourself and ask if they want updates on the process. Then you send updates as you go, what the outcome was, when the job is scheduled, when the job is complete, when the job's paid in full. Now One thing that I did not include in there, because I want you to know about it and communicate this clearly is the reason I didn't include it in the pack, is if you don't do this and you say you do, it's going to look really bad. Here's what I do. I sit down, I talk business. I'm like, listen, I know your biggest threat is renewals and I know your greatest opportunity is higher coverage. These are the key areas that I see in this field. Now, I'm not insulting you. I'm not saying that you do or don't do this. I don't know. I'm just sharing my knowledge in case it can help you. But I know that matching endorsements and full coverage RCV coverage. And no, you know, I worked on a claim, gosh, it was like after 10 years, it went from RCV to ACV replacement cash value to actual cash value. And it was like right at that mark and the homeowner got stiffed. So these are things that sometimes, by the way, agents don't even know about until they've been through the process once or twice. So I'll just say, hey, this is those things. And if you'd like, I'm more than happy to encourage my customers to reach out to you to make sure they have maximum coverage. Because guys, once like this happens, you're thinking, crap, it could happen again, I better be covered. So they're going to go to their agent and maximize their coverage. So, so you can add value by saying, hey, I'm going to encourage these folks to go back to you to maximize the coverage. So now again, the more we make this about the agent and their wins, the more they're going to want to refer business. So their win is, I'm going to take care of them. I'm going to make this job super simple and seamless, make you look like a hero so they renew and don't go somewhere else. That's a win. Make it about the agent. I'm going to give you, your clients, your friends, your family, all priority service. And I'll report to you first if you'd like, let you know what I find. And I'll provide the same level of service and that you've experienced so far. So that's the second thing. Third thing, I'm going to talk to my customers that I'm serving the mutual ones to revisit their coverage with you to make sure that they're completely covered. See if they want to up anything, see if they want to add Anything. See if there's any endorsements they want to add. So again, you're making it about the agent. When you do that to them, they're like, man one, they're smart. Two, like they're friendly. Their service is great and he gets it. You, you will earn business. You do not have to offer anything. You don't have to do anything monetary, which by the way, you can't. So it's a phenomenal, phenomenal tool. Plus one thing you can add on. And by the way, this is also in my marketing battle pack. There's a link in the description when you finish the project. I never stop with the customer. Just because they're done and paid in full doesn't mean they have a chance to give me referrals. Most people, when's the last referral you asked for? When you pick up the check for me, you ask me, when's the last referral you ask for? 90 days after I do them via email. I'll email them at 30 days, 60 days and 90 days. And I provide my customers value. One of those is here's some tips to get the most from your insurance coverage should this happen again, you know, revisit this with your agent. So I tell everybody and you can use those. They're in my marketing battle pack. This is just a table of contents, but you'll see here the 30, 60, 90 day referral emails after paid in full. These are educational. They're like, hey, keep the receipts, keep the pictures. That's one email. The other one's all about, you know, are your rates going to go up? Here's some documentation from TheTruth of Insurance.com that shows that from an act of God, they can't spike your rates up. And by the way, you know, this could happen again. Make sure you have maximum coverage. Go speak with your agent. So if you're using that for my marketing battle pack, you can go to the agent and say, listen, I also tell every single one of my customers to revisit the their insurance agent and say, hey, you know, I'd like to add these endorsements. So it's going out on our end and on your end and it will make you hopefully win more business. Now the last thing that you can do, and again, by the way, before I transition, all that's in the marketing battle pack and you can use this whole system kind of together in that and you'll get instant access to it. So the last thing to do for an agent is to let them know. By the way, if you like this agent. You, you will always get asked and drop those comments. By the way, I'm sure you've had this happen. If someone doesn't ask you like, hey, do you know an insurance company who might be better? I wasn't happy with the insurance company. You'll always see it, I'm sure of it. Drop comments, share the stories. I would love to hear them. We've had them. I've had a, you know, my, my insurance agent didn't tell me about this coverage and I only had ACV and not rcv. They're all horror stories. So if you can then refer business to that agent, they're going to refer more business to you. So, so you keep them in your back pocket as an option to send them more business. So by creating these win win synergy relationships that are grounded in value, it's not sleazy, it's not buying anything. You're providing value and everybody wins. The agent gets more business. He has better service to his clients. You have better service to your clients and make their life easier. You develop a new relationship here. The end customer that you're serving, that's also the agent's client. They're super happy because everything went well and seamless. It is gold. So that is all for how to network and get referrals from insurance agents. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments below or email me adamroofstrategist.com if you want to start using this material right away, you can get it literally at the click of a few buttons. It's my marketing battle pack. There's a link in the description. There's also an ebook down there you can take a look at in a free 30 day sales challenge. Click like if you like this video and subscribe for new videos coming every Tuesday, I will see you on the next one.