New hires in the insurance industry require a tailored approach to onboarding. Take a step back and be mindful of selecting the right courses for new insurance professionals. The skills your new hires need is wide and varied and can differ greatly from employee to employee. In this blog we’ll help you get started with your new hire training and choose the right courses for your employees.
Before you get started: Identify your new hire’s needs
If you’re in L&D or HR, you’ve probably been faced with a decision regarding what to include in your new hire training program. You have a variety of topics to cover and don’t want to overwhelm your new hires. So how do you make the choice about which content you should provide to each employee? How can you make sure that everybody in your organization has the correct training before they complete their onboarding process?
The answer is simple, you should group your new hires into three categories:
- High-level industry knowledge
- In-depth understanding about your offering
- Confident application of your products and/or services
By categorizing your new hires in this way, you’ll mitigate the risk of giving those who simply need a high-level overview of your offering too complex information and giving those experienced employees information that they already know. In doing so, you’ll be providing an onboarding experience that truly engages each new hire – and sets them up for success in your organization.
The 3 training courses new insurance professionals must take:
Each insurance agency will have its own nuances and niche, which should be reflected in your onboarding training. However, there are three topics that all new insurance professionals should take, which are:
1. Communication and negotiation skills
Good communication skills aren’t unique to the insurance industry, but they are paramount for success within this sector. Combining this with effective negotiation skills will prepare your new hires for success, so they can better communicate with colleagues, peers, and clients, and negotiate more wins for your organization.
2. An overview to the insurance industry
Those employees who need a high-level overview of your products and/or services may not have worked in the insurance industry before. They may not have a full understanding of what your offering entails. For this reason, it’s important that you include an overview of the insurance industry in the onboarding training for all your support staff. This training should include an overview of insurance basics, such as an Introduction to Risk Management, Underwriting and P&C Insurance – and much more!
3. Commercial Lines Coverage Basics™ and Personal Lines Coverage Basics™
Covering insurance topics, Commercial Lines Coverage Basics™ and Personal Lines Coverage Basics™, addresses the key topics all insurance professionals need to know. This training provides a comprehensive overview and is ideal for those new hires that fall into your ‘high-level industry knowledge’ group, such as sales, service, underwriting or administrative staff. These training courses will give new insurance professionals the overview they need on a range of topics from Property Coverage Basics through to Umbrella Liability.
After you’ve chosen your topics: Think about learning transfer
Often hiring managers spend a long time considering what to include in new hire onboarding, that they forget to consider the application of this training. This is called ‘learning transfer’ or ‘training transfer’, which considers “the extent to which employees apply what they learn in training on the job and coincides with the third level of training evaluation in Kirkpatrick’s model”.
Within your onboarding plan, you should include opportunities for your employees to apply their newly learned skills in the real world. We recommend designing a training plan for the first month of employment, and ensuring that their manager engages with them on a daily basis so they’re feeling supported and comfortable in their new role.
Looking for the best ready start training courses?
If you’re looking for ready start training courses for new insurance professionals, then head to My Agency Campus now. We have a range of training programs that are ideal for your new hires and are based on our 20+ years of experience in the insurance industry. If you’d rather create a bespoke program for your new hires, get in touch to discuss your requirements.