In the not too distant past, consumers went to independent agents for all of their insurance needs – whether simple or complex – because insurance was often an elusive concept to the man on the street. At the same time, insurance coverage was considered something everyone must have, so when insurance-related questions came up, many consumers’ initial instinct was, “I have to talk to my agent.”
Over the past few years, this paradigm has shifted toward consumers being much more willing and able to build an understanding of their needs. This trend is broadly seen across nearly every industry and is accelerating in insurance. While the trusted relationship with an agent is often still crucial, insurance consumers today are researching, purchasing and interacting with the insurance industry in new ways, and increasingly on their own terms. In working with agencies and end consumers around the industry, we think the shifting behavior of consumers can be summarized in two key ways:
- The Knowledgeable Consumer This consumer actively researches insurance online and consults his peer network prior to purchasing policies – either online or in person. How can you quickly and effectively service these consumers before they research other options or take their business elsewhere?
- The Always-On Consumer This consumer wants information anytime, anywhere via any device, be it smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. These consumers don’t want to stop by your office for an auto ID card or certificate of insurance. How can you give them access to their insurance information when and where they want it?
- Standardize and Dissect Your Data
- Standardized Workflows To the extent it makes sense for your business, workflow consistency can yield real productivity gains and help capture comprehensive and better customer risk and demographic information your agency can use to better market, account round and engage customers. By leveraging standardized workflows, agency owners are ensuring data entry is consistent across an agency – regardless of location. Additionally, standardized workflows reduce the number of workarounds conducted by staff – increasing productivity at the outset and reducing any potential time spent rectifying workarounds at the back-end. The result will be improved quality and completeness of the underlying data.
- Business Intelligence Over time, agencies and brokerages generate an immense amount of data – yet it can be difficult to access, analyze and understand that data in meaningful ways. Business intelligence (BI) solutions are one way to help turn all of that data into information. For example, principals can identify which producers are using their time most efficiently and driving the most revenue for the business. Principals can also evaluate how effectively their business is cross-selling and quickly identify new market opportunities. While traditional reporting can take hours if not days, BI solutions present your information in immediate and visual ways that drive new insights, enabling you to make more effective decisions to improve productivity and business growth.
- Think Easy Access
- Mobile Technology New mobile technology affords producers all of the benefits associated with management system access within an office, without having producers tethered to a desk. This allows them to be more productive and to respond to clients and prospects more quickly and in the manner that current and prospective customers want and expect. For smaller agencies, where employees wear multiple hats within the organization, giving your employees access to tools when they’re away from the office is critical.
- Online Access Consider how your business can leverage the cloud to drive productivity gains. The ability for service staff to work from home via the cloud, when needed, supports work-life balance and allows business to go on regardless of unexpected events.
- Time Is Money
- Paper No More Evaluate ways to become an all-digital agency and eliminate paper. Agencies and brokerages should leverage electronic signature and delivery of client documents, which reduces the time and expense of mailing paper copies.
- Carrier Information Exchange Productivity gains have increased over the years as carriers improved their interface and as agencies better understood how and where to enter data in carrier systems. The vast majority of agencies use personal lines policy detail download to reduce rekeying of data, saving, on average, 81 minutes a day per employee. In addition to download, using real-time for service and rating saves agency employees as much as an hour per day. Policy download yields daily time-savings of nearly an hour and a half per department employee for personal lines and nearly an hour for commercial lines. Take the time to automate communications with your carrier on the front end to save more time over the long term.
- Online Client Self-Service As mentioned, today’s insurance consumer increasingly expects information anytime, anywhere. Agencies need to provide clients the ability to access policy and billing information on their terms, which helps strengthen relationships, ensures high retention rates and drives revenue gains. Self-service capability can increase staff productivity and decrease costs in commercial lines, as well as personal.
