Comerica Inc. says it plans to expand its insurance subsidiary by focusing on both its existing customers and the bank's expanding footprint.
Steven Turtz, a vice president and the national sales director for Comerica Insurance Services, said the Detroit banking company will triple the revenue of its insurance business in the next two to two-and-a-half years. He would not specify how large the business now is, however.
His first challenge is introducing insurance services to the bank's customers, he said.
"Our customers are purchasing insurance products, but they are not purchasing them from Comerica right now," Mr. Turtz said. "We have to look at how and why that is happening."
Comerica must educate its customers, both internally and externally, Mr. Turtz said. Since being hired in July, he said, he has been working to devise training programs to let the sales staff and bankers "know that we do sell insurance."
"Many people don't even realize that this is a product that Comerica even sells," he added. "We want to wave the flag that we do sell this as a product line and educate our customers and our sales staff about who we are and what we do."
Kenneth Kehrer, the founder of the Princeton, N.J., consulting firm that was renamed Kehrer-Limra after a deal this week, said a tripling of revenue is possible for banks because their sales penetration is so low. "The typical bank, if it broadens channels in the bank and adopts the best practices of successful banks, could increase its life insurance revenue six or seven times, and that is just life insurance," he said.
"Banks are supposed to have an inherent advantage when it comes to selling insurance," he said. "That is the mantra they have been preaching for 20 years. The context is there for banks to be successful selling insurance, but it hasn't happened. Why not? Maybe it is focus. The other things banks do are still more important than selling insurance." Kehrer-Limra tracks insurance sales through banks.
Mr. Kehrer said Mr. Turtz and Comerica must analyze the challenges and find new ways to bring insurance products to bank customers in order to succeed.
As the bank improves sales within its main footprint in Michigan, Mr. Turtz said, he also wants to expand into its extended footprint in Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. "My goal is to take the main base of business in Michigan and secure that and then go from there," he said. "I want customers to realize we are a dominant player and expand into our other, growing footprints from there."
Mr. Turtz said he is looking to hire people in Florida and California to help develop insurance sales there.
"We need to have a national footprint with a local strategy in these markets," he said. "Each market is different. We have to develop a local presence with local people on the street in order to be successful."
Mr. Turtz, who oversees Comerica's national insurance sales, marketing, product development, and training initiatives, was a sales vice president at Highland Capital Brokerage in Los Angeles before joining Comerica. At Highland, he managed sales of insurance solutions to financial institutions in Southern California and Nevada.
He also previously was a senior vice president and western regional manager for Wells Fargo Insurance. From his base in Tucson, he managed the insurance sales activities of more than 600 consultants in 13 states. It was at Wells that he first worked with Dennis Mooradian, who now runs Comerica's wealth and institutional management division, of which Comerica Insurance Services is a unit.
"We have worked together before, and I know he believes in this strategy and in the fact that insurance can work here," he said. "I believe that we have the right people in place to grow here."
Comerica Insurance Services offers personal and property insurance as well as individualized solutions in life and estate planning, disability and long-term-care coverage, and business succession planning funding for affluent individuals and business owners.
