Can you believe it’s already time to consider the holiday season? As an independent insurance agent, Q3/Q4 can lead to a lot of extra work and stress.

While you might think your holiday tasks are small, these small tasks are valuable and can certainly pile up. Before you throw yourself into the season, let’s take a breather with a to-do list for the holidays.

Send Appropriate Gifts

A lot of holidays this time of year focus on gift-giving. Sending your clients a gift delivers a personal touch that shows you care. However, be careful. Depending on your state and type of gift, your generous gesture might be interpreted as rebating. In a nutshell, rebating is when an insurance agent provides a gift to a client related to their insurance purchase. You could consider it bribery. Your gift should NOT be connected to a client’s recent purchase of an insurance policy, never give cash offers, and be as broad as possible. Even if all of your clients get the same gift, it’s the thought that counts, right? For more tips on avoiding anti-rebating rules, here is a good piece describing what to do/not do.

Provide a Personal Touch on Holiday Cards

As you can see, gift-giving can be complex, but holiday cards can deliver the personal touch you need!

Don’t try to sell anything, don’t alienate any religions, and don’t try to be too funny that whatever you use can be seen as offensive. A personal message, especially handwritten, will show your clients that you took the time to address them personally. Depending on the number of clients you have, the sooner you jump on your holiday cards, the better. If you need more ideas, Insurance Business America has an excellent list of essential dos and don’ts.

Setup Social Media Posts

While you might be busy during the holidays, your online presence still needs attention. People access social media 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With the holidays, you don’t want to miss a moment to post and grab people’s attention.

So, what do you do? Thankfully, there are tools available that allow you to schedule social media posts ahead of time. While you and your family are enjoying a restful day celebrating the holidays, a holiday greeting you wrote days ago can be posted for all your clients and fans to see. Software like CoSchedule allows you to schedule posts ahead of time with ease. Also, to spruce up your Facebook page, check out our special package with nine different holiday cover designs!

Plan Ahead for Emergencies

Even during the holidays, accidents happen. Not every company offers the same days off. If situations popping up during this time, you need to have a game plan set up. Discuss availability with your other agents. If possible, plot out your calendar with everyone’s availability based on hours and days. Give priority to volunteers rather than force people to stay during this particular time. Either way, create a plan early to avoid frustrating, last-minute emergencies that could ruin you and your team’s holiday plans.

A lot of these items on our holiday checklist boil down to planning ahead. Don’t throw yourself into a tizzy when you should be celebrating! If you are interested in getting appointed with Normandy, interested in our personal approach to insurance policies, or you just want to join our holiday card list, please check out this page for more details: www.normandyins.com/become-agent

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