Insurance companies possess unique insights into the risks and opportunities facing businesses. The challenge for B2B insurance marketing is to communicate these complex topics to the right people in the right way at the right time. That’s where content marketing for insurance companies can create trust and strengthen relationships with current and potential clients.

Create a compelling content marketing strategy for your insurance company by clarifying your audience, differentiating your message through thought leadership, and removing barriers that keep your employees from sharing your content.

Why Is Content Marketing Important for Insurance Companies?

The insurance industry relies heavily on reputation. A strong content marketing strategy for your insurance company allows you to bolster and manage your reputation through thought leadership.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Insurance is a complex topic. Content marketing tackles those topics head-on, giving business leaders the information and guidance they need to make more informed decisions about risk.

For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, health care administrators bombarded health care facility insurers with questions about whether employees were covered under existing hospital workers’ compensation policies. Smart insurance companies responded by creating personalized question-and-answer COVID-19 guides, blog posts, and webinars to address client questions swiftly and authoritatively.

This response steered the narrative and bolstered those insurers’ reputations as professionals who can provide thoughtful answers during uncertainty.

Content marketing allows you to add a personalized, human element to your business while demonstrating your expertise. Content marketing can showcase your internal experts and advocates in several ways, including:

• Offering analysis of industry trends, including original research.
• Sharing case studies that demonstrate your capabilities.
• Highlighting employee stories.

Content marketing is a scalable opportunity to create value for your current — and future — customers.

What Are the Benefits of B2B Insurance Marketing?

Reducing the Time to Close New Business

B2B insurance marketing bolsters your company’s reputation as an authority in your industry, and those marketing efforts build trust between you and your prospects. This authority means potential clients are more likely to know who you are and what makes you different. You won’t have to spend as much time explaining why a potential client should do business with you and can focus more on the deal’s details.

Retaining and Growing Accounts

While many firms prioritize attracting new business, client retention is also critical in the insurance industry. Content marketing can help you promote additional products and services to current clients and reinforce the benefits of being a customer.

Reducing Preventable Losses Through Client Education

Some client losses can’t be prevented due to unavoidable or unforeseen issues. But many claims are preventable, especially with proactive client education and communication.

In this sense, content marketing can improve your bottom line in more ways than one.

For example, suppose your risk management department repeatedly gets the same question from different clients. In that case, the team could create a webinar about the issue, publish a guide or even coordinate an in-person or virtual event so clients can get their questions answered and have reference materials to look back on.

How to Craft Your B2B Insurance Marketing Plan

Understand Your Audience

The key to successful content marketing of any kind is understanding your audience. Ask yourself these questions to help guide your thought process:

• Who are they?
• What do they care most about?
• What do they fear?

As you explore these questions, consider all of the decision-makers. Insurance and risk decisions often require input from multiple stakeholders in finance, HR and risk management.

Position Your Brand as a Trusted Adviser

Insurance is about more than just the cost of the premium and payouts — it’s also about the people you’re doing business with.

How does your company stand out from competitors, especially those offering similar products and services?

This is where content marketing can help you differentiate your message, focusing on what makes your firm different from your competitors.

Thought leadership is a powerful way to position your brand as a trusted advisor.

White papers, articles or webinars can introduce new paradigms and models for thinking about and managing risk.

Your CEO or other executives can publish blog posts (ghostwriting based on interviews is OK!) or host LinkedIn Live presentations about key industry trends or news.

Pitch your claims management experts to the media to weigh in on the implications of new regulations.

Thought leadership demonstrates your value proposition and expertise in action while building trust.

Remove Barriers to Sharing

If organic promotion is part of your strategy, you’ll need to make it easy for your colleagues to share your brand’s content. Clear guidelines on what can be shared on social media are essential.

• Include internal promotion in your distribution and promotion campaign.
• Establish a compliance process to ensure everyone understands the dos and don’ts.
• Distribute assets to your colleagues in an easy-to-use manner.

These processes can be as simple as sending a weekly email at a small firm. Employee advocacy platforms like GaggleAMP can help scale initiatives and monitor compliance.

10 Great Examples of Content Marketing for Insurance

Aon’s Global Risk Management Survey

Aon’s  Global Risk Management Survey asks risk managers across 60 countries/territories and 16 industries to identify their biggest risk priorities annually, tracking and reporting on the most significant trends. The insurance giant releases a mega report on the overall survey results but extends the life of the research through additional content marketing and sales assets throughout the year.

Gallagher

Gallagher’s Managing Through Inflation Video Series addresses businesses looking for ways to support employees facing financial challenges in the current economic environment. The video series discusses solutions such as student loan repayment programs and employee financial coaching.

Marsh

Launched in 2012, Marsh’s Global Insurance Market Index report is based on its proprietary measure of global commercial insurance premium pricing change at renewal. An interactive report summary highlights key takeaways, a video findings recap, more in-depth findings organized by sector and a sector data graph. There is also a link to the full PDF version of the latest report.

RIMS

RIMScast is a weekly podcast hosted by RIMS Business Content Manager Justin Smulison. He interviews leading experts in the risk world on major industry trends. The podcast also includes exclusive members-only episodes.

Louisiana Hospital Association (LHA) Trust Funds

Louisiana Hospital Association (LHA) Trust Funds offers specialized insurance solutions and enterprise risk services to Louisiana health care organizations and physicians. LHA features a monthly claim study that walks through a claim and what health care practitioners should have done instead. The article also includes practical tips and resources for readers who may find themselves in a similar situation.

The Doctors Company

Medical malpractice insurer The Doctors Company weighs in on ESG with its 2021 Environmental, Social, and Governance Sustainability Report. The downloadable 11-page report explains what medical malpractice insurance has to do with ESG issues, provides a lengthy COVID-19 response, and makes diversity and inclusion commitments for the company.

One Call

Workers’ compensation insurer One Call’s Injured to Empowered: Success Stories campaign profiles how patients — and healthcare providers — benefit from the company’s services from the time of injury until “graduation” from the physical therapy program. These profiles personalize One Call’s services and emphasize the real difference the company is making in the lives of patients.

The Hartford

The Hartford publishes the Future of Benefits Study, a report that started tracking employee benefits trends and evolving U.S. workforce needs three years ago. The Hartford created a key highlights page featuring key highlights from the study in an interactive interface. Users can read, watch a video, or download the study in PDF format.

Allied World

Allied World debuted a written feature called Second Opinion on their blog in 2020  and pivoted in 2021, launching the Second Opinion as a Podcast. The Allied World professional liability team offers their perspective on industry trends, interviews guests, and throws in some humor as a bonus. It’s a great example of adapting a concept across multiple channels and formats.

ProAssurance

ProAssurance, a healthcare professional liability, legal professional liability and workers’ compensation insurance provider, has invested in a 50+ video series called “Two Minutes: What’s the Risk?” The series breaks down risk management topics on the company’s YouTube channel and a dedicated searchable page on its website.

Start Your Insurance Thought Leadership Journey

Content marketing can be a powerful tool in establishing your expertise and positioning yourself as a trusted industry leader in insurance and risk.

B2B clients crave personalized experiences given to them by someone they can trust. A good content marketing strategy can give them that, so seize the opportunity to tell your story.