The practice of selling both health benefits and property and casualty insurance (P&C) from one brokerage continues to be a growing trend at a time of industry consolidation and increasing use of technology. One important factor driving this trend is simply the matter of trust—once a broker has a strong relationship with a client in one area, the client is more likely to want to work with that broker in other capacities.

In some ways, benefits insurance has much in common with the P&C world. Dan Thompson, a partner at Gulfshore Insurance in Naples, Florida, notes that the health of employees is key to both benefits management and workers' comp—which is always a major part of any P&C product.

“The industry has often overlooked the fact that when you're managing risk through a workers' comp program, you're dealing with the health of the employees and working to make sure they lift things properly or that they adhere to proper practices to make sure that they're safe,” he says. “Likewise, on the benefits side, we're always talking about keeping employees healthy. So there's a logical connection between the two.”