In tough times, the decision-making process of the agent becomes pivotal. What are agencies looking for from their carriers? Celent senior analyst Mike Fitzgerald explains how technology is helping carriers move products and make money.

TD: Ease of doing business might be the most important issue in the area of distributing products today as independent agents and brokers want to work with insurers that strive to make the agents' customers happy. How much emphasis for this are you seeing among carriers and agents?

MF: A huge amount. When these initiatives pop up, sometimes they can be the flavor of the month and they go away, but ease of doing business definitely is one that has stayed around for a while. I first saw it in personal lines a number of years ago when insurers started to move to shorter cycle times. It really goes across all lines of business nowadays. Much like price and product, it's becoming the cost of admission to being on the favorite-carriers list for agents.