Quality is what counts. It doesn’t matter what industry you are involved in, if you are supplying quality, people will appreciate it and will pay a margin for it. Now, we are not saying it is easy charging more than a competitor but this is all part of the sales process.
Financial services is one area where it is incredibly difficult to justify differentials in price, particularly in the current economic climate. Business insurance is one such area where it never was easy to sell and 2009/2010 made it even harder.
But, going back to the first point, if you sell quality you can add a margin. But, for financial protection, if you are quality then you can bargain for a better price.
Take shop insurance for example, as a nation, excluding the major (10 or more outlets) chains, we have over 150,000 shops. From an underwriting point of view, some of these are good and some are bad. The bad ones are the ones that are at higher risk (ie theft of attractive contents) or they have had and will continue to have, claims.
If you have not had a claim in over three years and all other things from an insurers point of view are good, then you can still get bargains. Of course, the major companies do not have sales, in reality there is a sale all year round. If your business represents the risk quality that they are looking for (see below) then the insurers want your premium and will price their quotes accordingly.
Good points:-
1) Low, or no claims, over the past three years.
2) Trading for more than three years.
3) Family owned.
4) Good security, including roller shutters.
5) Not involved in highly theft attractive stock (ie mobile phones/designer wear) although a restricted number of companies will fight for this business as well.
6) In a nice rural, flood free location. If you are in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh etc, we just need to be more selective in which insurers we apporach.