They Copied All They Could Follow (TCOR)

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of C.R. Ekern & Company (parent company of TCORCalc®.) Over the years it has been our pleasure to help brokers break a lot of new ground. Our focus has always been to provide services to leading firms to help them attract and retain larger accounts. That is all we have been about.

This has led us to create the Analytic Broker™ Platform. This groundbreaking web-based platform is achieving tremendous success for our brokerage clients who utilize it to expand their large account book of business. Frankly, we know that we have already helped our Analytic Broker partners generate several million dollars in new revenues in the recent past.

Our firm has grown more than 150% over the past 18 months, thanks primarily to the forward-thinking and highly profitable brokerages that look to us as their platform provider for large account sales and retention.

Over the past 20 years we have written and shared freely about the importance of Total Cost of Risk (TCOR.) We have produced hundreds of thousands of words on the subject, including our bestselling book: Consultative Brokerage: A Value Strategy, Featuring Total Cost of Risk*. Our definition of TCOR has now become the industry standard with its “Four Quadrants of TCOR.” (* Published by National Underwriter.)

As Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “They copied all they could follow, but they couldn’t copy my mind, and I left ‘em sweating and stealing, a year and a half behind.”

We always knew that someday, other sales trainers and insurance tool providers would pick up our language and attempt to copy it. Of course, that has happened over the past several years. We welcome this, frankly, because when one of these “copycats” makes a client aware of TCOR, it actually helps our Analytic Brokers™ who use TCORCalc® as their primary tool for analytics.

Here are the main differences between what many are espousing as accurate client TCOR tools and the Analytic Brokerage™ Analysis using TCORCalc®:

The copycats use a spreadsheet that is essentially just a calculator. It is produced in their own silo and is merely their opinion. TCORCalc is a cloud-based platform that aggregates data in real-time from across North America.
The other “tools” speak about indirect loss costs, but expect you to use data that is obsolete and worthless. They tout studies that are close to 40 years old. TCORCalc uses real-time Indirect Loss Cost Factors that are certified by CFO’s and buyers.
Most TCOR worksheets are of little competitive value to you. They don’t accurately capture the financial impact you have delivered through the resources and services you have provided. TCORCalc quantifies the value of YOUR resources impact, a critical component of your firm’s value proposition.
The TCOR copycats use primarily one KPI, converting bottom line against top line revenues. That method is obsolete, as most CFO’s utilize a wide array of KPI’s including EBITDA, Shareholder Value and productivity metrics.
The analysis of Risk Financing costs is generally incomplete and incorrect with the TCOR worksheets and calculators. They are unable to automatically combine non-concurrent placements that span various policy periods, so their output is not accurate. TCORCalc quickly digests that overlapping data and delivers complete reports that meet the highest standard of correctness.
Most TCOR worksheets are useless in the analysis of a captive’s or alternative placements’ TCOR. As this is a growing area for successful brokers, TCORCalc is built to analyze the financial impact of the broker’s efforts on the captive and alternative placements.

We could go on and on. Again, we welcome the brokers who are satisfied with the “copycat” TCOR worksheets and tools. They are helping to raise the awareness level among their clients and prospects. WE LOVE the fact that they are providing those buyers with an analysis that is already obsolete. It is providing the Analytic Brokers who deliver TCORCalc® data and analysis a tremendous opportunity to grab additional market share!

Astute buyers don’t want opinions. They want facts, and these facts must be objective and complete. An opinion without facts simply isn’t good enough. Your buyers won’t settle for incomplete data or facts, and you shouldn’t either.

So, they copied all they could follow. But, without creating a meaningful and complete TCOR calculation, they are sweating and stealing, about five years behind!

Thank you for a great 20 Years Together!

Rob Ekern, CAB (Certified Analytic Broker™)
Chairman, TCORCalc®

P.S. We are not resting on our successes. You can expect some big news in the coming months about our TCORCalc® platform for Benefits Brokers.

TCORCalc® provides certified metrics and data-driven reports (including the Financial Leakage™ Report) and a large account sales platform for insurance brokers across North America. Contact us today to super-charge your sales