Reith & Associates principal broker Dan Reith explains how his brokerage has succeeded for over a century by advocating the broker role
IBC: Reith & Associates has experienced great success for over a century. What has been a key strategy to that success?
Dan Reith: When I look at our more recent achievements over the past decade, it would be the development and implementation of our unique process that we termed Mission to
Your Prosperity, as well as the implementation of our Discovery method. These all tie into our utilization of best practices gained from the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), which my brother Darren has been fortunate to be a member of for over 15 years. We’ve taken the best practices he learned at MDRT and applied them to the operations of a property and casualty brokerage. This has helped us focus on organic growth through the development of client relationships by better understanding our clients’ needs and expectations, which ties back our unique process.
IBC: What is Reith & Associates’ unique process?
DR: It is the cornerstone of what we call the Reith Advantage. Over our many years of practice, we developed this six-step process. It gives us tremendous insight into our clients’ and prospective clients’ needs and expectations. It begins with our Right Fit Experience. Here, we get to know the client to determine if they are a good fit for us and, more importantly, if we are a good fit for them. We then move through to the Advantage Discovery, Solution Mapping, Solution Activation, Support System and conclude with the Strategic Review Experience, which happens every year at renewal.
Through the application of this process, we have really mastered organic growth. Since I joined the company in 1992, we have grown ten times, and we are currently on track to grow another ten times all through organic business gained through our Mission to Your Prosperity process.
IBC: What are your thoughts on the technology revolution happening in the industry?
DR: We have to embrace it. Technology has to be utilized wisely, as a component of one’s overall business strategy, not as the be-all and end-all. I do not believe the technology solution for a broker in the Greater Toronto area is necessarily right for a broker in rural southern Ontario. The key is clearly understanding the expectations of your ideal client and developing an operating platform and client experience model around them. As brokers, we must remember our strategic advantage: choice, and competent council. We serve as an advocate. If we utilize
technology that distances us from our clients, limiting or reducing the importance of our strategic advantage, by allowing complete self-service access, we run the risk of proving ourselves unnecessary and redundant.
IBC: How does Reith & Associates maximize opportunities?
DR: We look at the best way to maximize the opportunities presented to us by coming up with solutions that best capitalize those opportunities. For instance, we were having a conversation one day around how we can provide more services. That was when we came up with the idea of tax planning. We have a number of clients for whom we perform investment and financial services, so we thought: “If we were to understand their tax situation, how could we better serve their financial planning needs?” So one of our in-house financial planners became certified
as a personal tax specialist, and now we provide that service. We took that opportunity and maximized its potential.
IBC: What is your prediction for the future of the Canadian insurance industry?
DR: Our insurance company “partners” will be our biggest competitors. We need to understand what they don’t do well and what we can do better. We need to ensure that we do not become irrelevant and there remains a “The brokerage industry needs to seriously look at a fee-for-service program … we give away all of our intellect for free” true partnership. There needs to be a
retraining of the consumer to understand that the lowest price is not the best insurance. It is a recurring message our insurance company competitors shout loud, clear and regularly.
Another thing that the brokerage industry needs to do is begin to seriously look at and implement a fee-for-service program. We have the same duty of care to our clients as a lawyer or accountant does; yet we don’t get paid like they do. An insurance company pays a commission for us to place a piece of business, but we give away all of our intellect for free. I think that it’s time for the industry to acknowledge that there is a value here and we should be charging for it, and I believe that is a direction that the industry needs to begin to go in the future.
