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Unlocking growth through affinity insurance programs

Download Marsh’s comprehensive guide to learn the benefits of unlocking growth through affinity insurance programs.
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03/17/2026 · 8 minute read

Unlock growth and create new opportunities with affinity insurance programs

This comprehensive guide walks you through how to build or enhance an affinity insurance program that drives business value, reduces risk, and strengthens relationships with your third-party network.

In our guide Unlocking growth through affinity insurance programs, you’ll discover the key benefits of affinity insurance, practical steps to design and implement a successful program, and important considerations to navigate along the way. Learn how Marsh’s deep expertise can support you in selecting the right partners, ensuring compliance, and managing your program for long-term success.

Use this guide to:

  • Discover the benefits and strategic value of affinity insurance programs.
  • Evaluate whether affinity insurance is the right fit for your organization and third-party networks.
  • Explore a detailed, step-by-step process for building or enhancing a program.
  • Determine the resources, partners, and technology required to implement a successful program.

Are you ready to unlock growth through an affinity insurance program?

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Who can benefit from affinity insurance programs?

Affinity insurance programs are a strong fit for organizations across a wide range of sectors, including but not limited to:

  • Automotive
  • Agent networks
  • Business solutions
  • Equipment and consumer electronics
  • Financial institutions
  • Franchises
  • Logistics and transportation groups
  • Warranty services

If your organization works with third-party networks that face unique risks, affinity insurance could be a strategic advantage.

Click to learn more about each step of the process:

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A successful affinity program should align with your third-party network’s expectations and insurance needs, while reflecting your brand and complying with legal requirements.

Affinity solutions range from white-labeled products to simple referral processes, depending on what suits your participants best.

Many participants struggle to find affordable, appropriate coverage individually. By pooling risk, affinity programs can offer better coverage and pricing than individual policies.

Key questions:

  • Would these parties expect to buy insurance from the organization?
  • Do they trust your organization to deliver an insurance product?
  • What are their pain points and requirements?

Placement is the process of securing and arranging insurance coverage for the affinity solution package — where organizations decide who will take care of the insurance part of the offering. The placement process is a crucial step on your affinity journey. Executed effectively, your organization benefits from a risk transfer strategy that helps you achieve your goals.

Key questions:

  • Who can carry the risk?
  • Do you want to participate in the risk?
  • What is the role of a broker?

Some affinity insurance programs work best as digital-first propositions — operating on a high-volume basis that’s enabled by some form of technology. Others are completely offline. A good first step is to evaluate the internal processes that you already follow, and how an affinity insurance program can be implemented without causing disruption.

Your affinity insurance program will be unique to your business, so there’s no single correct answer here. But with a deep understanding of your processes, you can distribute your program to your customers/members at the right time during the sales journey.

Key questions:

  • How can you create a seamless digital journey?
  • How can you bridge your customer’s physical and digital sales journeys?
  • How many systems require integration as part of the digital solution?

Insurance is highly regulated, so there are rules that govern how you can market your affinity insurance program. In general, any marketing relating to the insurance offering must be developed by your chosen insurance partner.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t control your marketing strategy or have any involvement in the process. You can decide on how you want your program to be marketed — you may take a light-touch approach or form an active partnership, in this regard, with your insurance partner.

Since marketing is a key ingredient of any successful collaboration, you should consider your partner’s expertise in building a robust marketing strategy, using a combination of tried and trusted, and innovative techniques to promote your program, engage your members or customers, and drive sales.

Key questions:

  • Does your third-party network have trust in your brand?
  • What are the local legal and compliance requirements for promoting insurance?

Harnessing the power of insurance can grant your organization greater access to data, and as a result, insights that can help inform business decisions and drive efficiency.

If you are building a program alone, you may need support with analysis; for example, asking your chosen insurer to benchmark performance. This is an area where a broker can help.

Key questions

  • What factors affect access to your third-party network’s insurance data?
  • What type of insights can you gain from your affinity program?
  • What can you achieve with these data insights?

The claims process is where your affinity insurance program will be put to the test for your customers or members — with potentially significant ramifications for your brand.

You’ll also want to ensure you can monitor the claim from the first notification to the end. That way, you can identify any bottlenecks as soon as they arise, ensuring efficiencies.

If you choose to build your affinity insurance program without involving a broker,  insurers will likely handle claims entirely, meaning you may lack end-to-end claims visibility and be exposed to evolving carrier appetite, underwriting shifts, and pricing or capacity changes that can disrupt your offering. A broker like Marsh documents processes, tests claims scripting before launch, and—because we place more premium in the marketplace than any other broker—provides market access and intelligence to spot and respond to carrier appetite shifts, re-market coverage, and protect your customers and brand.

Key questions:

  • Who will handle your customer’s claims process?
  • What is the customer expectation from the claims process?
  • Will a fully digital claims process be acceptable?

FAQs

An affinity organization is formed around a shared interest or goal, to which individuals formally or informally belong. Common examples include franchisees and independent contractors. In addition to these, affinity organizations also include: 

  • Agent networks: Groups formed by insurance agents, financial agents or other professionals to leverage shared resources and expertise. 
  • Business solutions: Organizations dedicated to providing specialized business solutions for their customers and affiliates. 
  • Franchises: Created when a franchisor licenses its business model and brand to franchisees. 
  • Transportation groups: Organizations focused on the needs and interests of transportation professionals and businesses. 
  • Warranty programs: Groups offering warranty services and support tailored to member needs.

To better pursue third-party network’s interests, affinity group leaders should consider an insurance program designed around their unique needs and risks, leveraging expertise in agents, business solutions, franchise, transportation, and warranty.

Affinity insurance provides policies unique to the members of the group. By pooling together risk, participants harness group buying power at scale and are able to reduce the costs of coverage.

By creating a program specific to your own group, your organization is able to build a customizable plan that offers the solutions to risk areas that more generic policies likely will not address.

Contact a Marsh representative to learn how our programs are tailored for each company's operations and requirements. Examples of coverages include: 

  • Business Owner's Policy
  • General Liability
  • Commercial Automobile
  • Workers' Compensation
  • Property
  • Employment Practices Liability
  • Cyber Liability 
  • Professional Liability

We tend to find there are five key benefits you can achieve with an affinity insurance program.

  1. Differentiate your offer: Stand out from the competition with a product that delivers more for third-party network.
  2. Increase sales: Enhance the value proposition of your products and unlock new opportunities.
  3. Strengthen brand loyalty: Deliver products and services that keep customers coming back.
  4. Improve customer retention: Get more data on your services and improve retention.
  5. Revenue diversification: Add new revenue streams to your business and grow your bottom line.

Setting up an affinity insurance program can be challenging due to various factors. We have outlined the five main factors below.

  1. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to developing an affinity insurance program. Each program is customized to the unique characteristics and needs of your customer or member base and organizational structure.
  2. Navigating the regulatory landscape can be daunting, as insurance regulations vary across jurisdictions and can be subject to change.
  3. Establishing partnerships with insurers, negotiating contracts, and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements can add further complexity to the process.
  4. Understanding your third-party network to identify the type of insurance product that will meet their needs and developing the distribution strategy adds an additional layer of complexity.
  5. Without a high degree of digital expertise, achieving a seamless digital experience and integrating current technology systems without an expensive overhaul represents a challenge.

At Marsh, we have demystified the process of setting up an affinity insurance program. We take you through each step of the process from evaluating whether affinity is a right fit for you, understanding your customer base and sales journey, evaluating risk partners, assessing your digital capabilities, leveraging marketing and data insights, considering the claims process, and highlighting the regulatory issues for expanding across borders.

We apply methods and techniques that we have learned from decades of offering affinity programs. These form the basis of an iterative process by which we constantly look to improve the affinity client experience based on our deep understanding of the market and the impact of the latest innovation. Our expert team provide an end-to-end solution to create a compelling affinity offering.

Are you ready to unlock the growth through an affinity insurance program?

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