How our contingency programs work to increase agency revenue

Keystone boasts a wealth of resources for our agencies to increase their revenue. One of these resources is contingency programs with our core carriers. Many of our independent agencies did not have these incentives with the same carriers prior to joining Keystone.

How these programs work

Our agencies are enrolled into profit sharing for each core carrier they are contracted with. We negotiate each plan with our carriers to ensure the best possible arrangement. These arrangements can be on a state-by-state basis, or national across our footprint, and are contingent on multiple factors including written premium, earned premium, or growth percentage. Whatever the factors for program eligibility, payouts are based on the overall performance statewide or nationally of all agencies that are in the plan. Most often, agencies transition their individual carrier contracts to a master contract, although there are some exceptions based on the agency’s performance or other contractual obligations with the individual carrier. Many candidates fear moving their carrier contracts to Keystone’s master contract. However, our agencies still completely own their accounts under this arrangement. Should they decide to move business to another carrier, they have complete control. Should they decide to part ways with Keystone, they still own their books of business.

Incentivizing performance

An agency’s payout is contingent on the aggregate performance defined in the plan and in accordance with the date they entered the plan. In addition, we help maintain profitability and incentivize strong performance through defining a loss ratio and minimum premium thresholds, offering additional incentive dollars to our agencies that maintain these thresholds with individual carriers.

Other ways of increasing revenue

Keystone helps our independent agencies maintain a healthy loss ratio through our profit monitoring and claims management teams. As a part of this process, we review a minimum of 2 years of losses. If losses are above our minimum threshold percentage, we do a deeper dive to determine the nature of frequency of these losses to help agencies develop an action plan, such as a book roll to another carrier, claims review, or utilizing our risk management team to help clients improve their safety procedures.

In addition, we continually offer temporary incentive programs with individual carriers for certain classes of business. These programs offer additional commission or other bonus opportunities.

If you are interested in learning about what a Keystone relationship could mean for your agency, contact us today.