The field of insurance covers a wide range of offerings and customer types. You might specialize in insurance for realtors or for building contractors, homeowners and auto insurance for families, or in insurance offerings for corporations, which could include life insurance, liability insurance, bonding, health care coverage, and disability insurance, as well as insurance for all corporate assets such as buildings, vehicles, and equipment. But no matter what sort of insurance services and packages you offer, the basics of writing an insurance business proposal remain the same.
How do you get started writing a proposal? First of all, you will research your potential clients, most likely by chatting with them on the phone or in person. It's vital to be able to put yourself in their position, to understand what their needs and wants and concerns are, because, for best success, you want to write a proposal that is customized for each client. Of course you'll use a lot of the same information in all your proposals, but each proposal should be specific enough to show that you are responding to the particular needs of that client. The key to winning new contracts is proving that you understand your customers as well you know as your business.
After you have a good grasp of your customer's situation, you're ready to sit down and write the proposal. All business proposals follow a basic structure: introduction, description of needs, explanation of how you will meet those needs, and then a description of why you can be trusted to do the job. That doesn't sound so hard, does it? You know your business, and after you've researched your potential client, it shouldn't be difficult to write a proposal. You can also make the process easier and faster by using a pre-designed proposal kit, which is designed especially for writing proposals and other business documents. The templates in any good kit provide instructions and examples to help you get the right information on each page.
Let's get started, working from the top page of a proposal to the last. Naturally, the first page you'll need is a Cover Letter that briefly explains who you are, why you are writing, and provides all your contact information. Following the Cover Letter, you should create a Title page, which is simply a name for your proposal, like "Proposed Insurance Package for PQR Corporation" or "Homeowners and Automobile Insurance for the Martinez Family." If you are creating a complex document that many people are likely to read (as for a corporation), then you might want to insert an Executive Summary or Client Summary page next - this is simply a list of the major points you want to make. A page like this may be scanned by top-level readers, who are likely to pass your proposal on to lower-level decision makers for a complete evaluation. This completes the introduction section of the proposal.
Next comes the client-centered portion, or the description of needs. Here you will prove that you understand your potential customer, by including pages like Needs Analysis, Client Background, Risk Assessment, Considerations, Requirements, and so forth. Depending on the type of insurance you're proposing, you may also need to include pages that describe the items - Assets or Personnel to be insured - so you can be sure that you and your potential client agree on the range of coverage you are discussing.
After you have described your understanding of your client's needs and concerns, then proceed to describe how you propose to meet those needs, and what it will cost. You'll most likely include pages with titles like Recommendations, Options, Comparison, Policy, Premiums, Contract and Terms, Claims, Exclusions, Reliability, Bonding, and so forth, to spell out exactly what you are offering.
In the final proposal section, you will provide proof that you are the best choice to supply the insurance coverage needed. To do this, you'll include information about your company such as a Company History, About Us, and/or Experience page, and pages that mention your customer base, such as Our Clients or Clients Served. If you have special Certifications or Training, have won Awards in your industry, or have Testimonials from clients to recommend your services, you'll want to include those, too.
The final page in your proposal should be a call to action or Next Steps page, where you state what you want the client to do next, such as signing the enclosed contract or calling you to set up a meeting for further discussion.
Be sure to double-check every page to make sure spelling and grammar are correct and that everything looks professional. It's always a good idea to employ a professional proofreader or editor, or at least get someone who is unfamiliar with your proposal to scrutinize it. If you present a proposal that is full of grammatical errors, your readers may conclude that you are likely to be just as error-prone in your business dealings.
Before you deliver your proposal via mail, email, or by hand, make sure your proposal looks good, too. Use a professional design that adds graphic elements and dashes of color to enhance the visual appeal of your proposal and works with your company logo.
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Ian Lauder has been helping small businesses and freelancers write their proposals and contracts since 1997. => For more tips and best practices when writing your business proposals and legal contracts go to http://www.proposalkit.com
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