Meeting clients this way helps build trust, he says. “A thriving relationship is built on trust,” he says. “Comfort builds trust.”

Trust is key with all customers, of course, but perhaps especially so with millennials. “Unless they like and trust the information they’re getting, and the company giving it to them, millennials are less likely to become a loyal customer,” says Maxime Rieman, head of insurance research at ValuePenguin.com, an online financial-services information clearinghouse. “On the other hand, research has shown that millennials can have tremendous brand loyalty once that trust is established.”

To gain that likability and trust, some insurance carriers appeal to millennials’ interest in socially conscious causes. “By donating a portion of their premiums to a charity of [the clients’] choosing,” says Rieman, carriers “not only build trust but also let millennials feel that they are helping a cause they care about.”

Point of Sale

Other carriers and brokers target millennial customers at relevant purchase points—for instance, offering renters’ policies through landlords or homeowners’ coverage through home-appliance stores. “It’s reasonable to assume that one-stop coverage products would perform well with millennials,” says Rieman. “If an insurance company can win a millennial’s trust and provide a single-stop, simple insurance solution, it’s quite likely to win that customer’s business across all needed lines of coverage.”

Convenience is Key

That kind of shopping convenience is especially well suited to the online world. “Millennials have grown up in an era where, after they buy things on Amazon, Amazon immediately suggests four other items they may be interested in buying,” says Mike Pesch, CEO of the U.S. global brokerage division of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., an international insurance brokerage based in Chicago. “We are giving our buyers similar information in terms of the insurance they buy.”

When a customer looks at one type of insurance, he says, Gallagher presents “additional coverages based off of what other people in a similar situation are buying.”

This is part of the company’s commitment to “communicate with millennials in new ways,” says Pesch, “from the initial purchase of insurance all the way through to the claims process. This includes user-friendly online platforms where our brokers can communicate in a space where millennials are extremely comfortable.”

It’s not just the millennials who benefit from these online interactions. There is an advantage for the companies, too. They can gain valuable data about their demand base. “The information that we have about our buyers is much more robust, which allows us to be more targeted and specific in terms of who we target and how we reach a potential buyer,” says Pesch. “As marketing has adapted to the use of data, it has become more relevant to the ultimate user of the product.”