Dairyland offers help selling insurance
By Liz Hochstedler
Associate Editor
Dealerships are already short-staffed. Many don’t have time to make a full insurance pitch. Even so, it might be required for financing — and for a customer to legally ride a new motorcycle immediately after the sale.
Understanding this predicament, Dairyland Cycle Insurance is offering a new program to dealers in which staff members at Dairyland’s call center actually complete the sale. It’s called a sub-producer program.
Each dealership offering Dairyland’s insurance still has to have an employee licensed in property and casualty insurance. However, that person doesn’t have to be concerned with the insurance pitch, explained Sarah Weaver, dealership/affinity marketing manager for Dairyland.
When a unit sale has been completed, the salesperson explains the insurance process and why insurance is necessary, then directs the customer to a phone. Dairyland will be called, and the salesperson can then leave the customer at the phone, while Dairyland makes the sale.
“They don’t actually have to do the selling at the dealership,” Weaver said.
Besides getting the pitch out of the hands of the dealership, it also keeps a customer busy while the F&I department has a line or other parts of the sale are being processed. And the dealer also still benefits from the sale.
“Because the dealership has someone in there that is licensed, we actually pay them that commission,” Weaver explained.
The dealership also earns a commission each time the policy is renewed. Dairyland sends out all the documents to the customer as well.
Weaver said the program, which is just beginning to be rolled out at dealerships, was created to answer dealers’ concerns that they can’t afford to add staff to sell insurance.
