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Broken Bottles, Broken Promises

I confess that when I read the sub-head – What the Snapple Lady can teach agents & brokers about managing relationships – to Shawn Moynihan’s smart piece about the insurance promise and the claims experience, I thought he might have been referring to my friend, Jane Cavalier. Jane is the branding genius who actually came up with the now-famous copy line, “Made from the Best Stuff on Earth.” In fact, Moynihan’s Snapple Lady is his aspirational imagination of the consumer product company actually expressing something genuinely human, with an offer of something vaguely substantive, in response to a potentially dangerous experience he had with their packaging.

Money quote:

The lesson here is simple. When an insured has a claim, or an issue, you have one opportunity to do right by them. When that call comes, they’re depending on you to make the right decision. Make it. Otherwise, you may end up like the company whose logo arguably should be, “Made from the Most Careless, Stingy Stuff on Earth.”

Yikes! Sorry, Jane.

But kudos to Shawn. I’ve met one too many claims executives recently who think the training message to adjusters should be to nail customers, screw the attorneys, and negotiate for sport. This is a ridiculously short-term strategy, one that might generate higher margins for a few years, but ultimately result in diminished brand equity and a loss of market share.

Read Shawn’s full article in Property Casualty 360º