Method
Respondents were asked to provide their role in their agency and then rate the importance of 35 items on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being "most important." Each item described a performance factor that agencies might use to evaluate insurance companies.

To display the results, a 1,000-point scale is used in the tables. So, if an item's average rating was 9.25 (out of a possible 10), its overall score will be displayed as 925.

Results
456 people responded. The average rating of all items combined was 8.4 (displayed as 840). In other words, even the average performance item was rated higher than "8" on a 1-to-10 scale.

Further, even the item rated "least important" (customer service center) received an average rating of 6.1. Thus, in absolute terms, none of the 35 items rated was considered relatively "unimportant." No item received an average rating below 5.0, which would have put it toward the "least important" side of the rating scale.

There were slight variations in the results, based on the role of the respondent at his or her agency, as shown in Tables 4-7.

Uses for this information
PIA is sharing this information with insurance carriers, believing it may help them plan how to allocate resources and improve overall performance, with respect to their value to agents.

PIA also has used the information to help re-format its popular Company Performance Survey. The 16 performance items that had been standard in this survey (2002-2008) were included with 19 other items, making up the 35 items in the Benchmark Survey. "Importance" ratings for all 35 items were taken in consideration in the re-design of the annual Company Performance Survey. Some standard items were re-written or dropped in favor of new items, while the overall survey was expanded to include 21 performance items in all.