Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 3,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their insurance agencies. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through an insurance agency business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.
What is an Insurance Agency Business Plan?
A business plan provides a snapshot of your insurance agency as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.
Why You Need a Business Plan for an Insurance Agency
If you’re looking to start an insurance agency or grow your existing insurance agency you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your insurance agency in order to improve your chances of success. Your insurance agency business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your agency grows and changes.
Source of Funding for Insurance Agencies
With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for an insurance agency are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate the business.
The second most common form of funding for an insurance agency is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding, or, like a bank, they will give you a loan. Venture capitalists will not fund an insurance agency unless it is based on a unique, scalable technology.
How To Write a Business Plan for an Insurance Agency
Your insurance agency business plan should include 10 sections as follows:
- Executive Summary
- Company Overview
- Industry Analysis
- Customer Analysis
- Competitive Analysis
- Marketing Plan
- Operations Plan
- Management Team
- Financial Plan
- Appendix
Executive Summary
Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.
The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of insurance agency you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have an insurance agency that you would like to grow, or are you operating multiple insurance agency locations already.
Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the insurance agency industry. Discuss the type of insurance agency you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target market. Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.
Company Analysis
In your company analysis, you will detail the type of insurance business you are operating.
For example, you might operate one of the following types:
- Direct Writer / Captive: this type of insurance agency only sells one insurance company’s products – like Allstate or State Farm
- Independent Insurance Agent: this type of insurance agency is privately-owned, and sells policies with may different insurance companies
In addition to explaining the type of insurance agency you operate, the Company Analysis section of your own business plan needs to provide background on the business.
Include answers to question such as:
- When and why did you start the business?
- What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new location openings, etc.
- Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.
Industry Analysis
In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the insurance business.
While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.
First, researching the insurance industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.
Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards weather-related policy purchases, it would be helpful to ensure your plans call for flood insurance options.
The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.
The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your insurance company business plan:
- How big is the insurance industry (in dollars)?
- Is the market declining or increasing?
- Who are the key competitors in the market?
- Who are the key insurance carriers in the market?
- What trends are affecting the industry?
- What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
- What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your insurance agency. You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.
Customer Analysis
The customer analysis section of your insurance agency business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.
The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, households, businesses, etc.
As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of insurance agency you operate. Clearly baby boomers would want different pricing and product options, and would respond to different marketing promotions than recent college graduates.
Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most insurance businesses primarily serve customers living in their same geographic region, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.
Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.
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Competitive Analysis
Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.
Direct competitors are other insurance agencies.
Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from you that aren’t direct competitors. This includes self pay and public (Medicare, Medicaid in the case of health insurance) insurance or directly working with an insurance carrier. You need to mention such competition to show you understand that not everyone who purchases insurance does so through an insurance agency.
With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other insurance agencies with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be insurance agencies located in your geographic region.
For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:
- What types of customers do they serve?
- What insurance products do they offer?
- What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
- What are they good at?
- What are their weaknesses?
With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective.
The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:
- Will you provide superior insurance agency products/services?
- Will you provide insurance agency products that your competitors don’t offer?
- Will you make it easier or faster for customers to acquire your products?
- Will you provide better customer service?
- Will you offer better pricing?
Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.
Marketing Plan
Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For an insurance agency, your marketing plan should include the following:
Product: in the product section you should reiterate the type of insurance agency that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products/services you will be offering. For example, in addition to P&C insurance, will you also offer life insurance?
Price: Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the menu items you offer and their prices.
Place: Place refers to the location of your insurance agency. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your insurance agency located next to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or a heavily populated office building, etc. Discuss how your location might provide a steady stream of customers.
Promotions: the final part of your insurance agency marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:
- Making your insurance agency’s front store extra appealing to attract passing customers
- Advertising in local papers and magazines
- Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
- Flyers
- Partnerships with local organizations (e.g., auto dealerships or car rental stores)
- Local radio advertising
- Banner ads at local venues
Operations Plan
While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.
Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your insurance agency such as serving customers, procuring relationships with insurance carriers, negotiating with repair shops, etc.
Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to acquire your 500th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch a new location.
Management Team
To demonstrate your insurance agency’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.
Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in an insurance agency. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.
If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in insurance agencies and/or successfully running small businesses.
Financial Plan
Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.
Income Statement: an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.
In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you acquire 20 new customers per month or 50? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.
Balance Sheets: While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $100,000 on building out your insurance agency location and/or website, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.
Cash Flow Statement: Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money.
In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a successful insurance agency:
- Location build-out including design fees, construction, etc.
- Marketing expenses
- Website development
- Payroll or salaries paid to staff
- Business insurance
- Taxes and permits
- Legal expenses
Appendix
Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your store design blueprint or location lease.
Free Insurance Business Plan Template
You can download our insurance business plan PDF or sample insurance business plan to help you get started on your own business plan.
If you are looking for the quickest and easiest way to complete your business plan, Growthink’s Ultimate Insurance Business Plan Template has numerous features not available in the free template including its financial projections template which automatically calculates your complete five-year financial projections including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.
Insurance Business Plan Summary Putting together a business plan for your insurance business will improve your company’s chances of success. The process of developing your plan will help you better understand the insurance market, your competition, and your customers. You will also gain a marketing plan to better attract and serve customers, an operations plan to focus your efforts, and financial projections that give you goals to strive for and keep your company focused.
Additional Resources for Insurance Agents
- How to Write a Marketing Plan for an Insurance Agency
- How to Start an Insurance Agency
- Association for Independent Agents
- Business License Requirements By State For Insurance Agencies
Finish Your Insurance Business Plan in 1 Day!
Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Insurance business plan?
With Growthink’s Ultimate Insurance Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!
OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You
Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.
Learn about Growthink’s business plan writing services.
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