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

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

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