The September issue of Tech Decisions will include anarticle I wrote about the carrier/agency relationship and the termthose two sides love to debate: ease of doing business.

Most carriers and agencies have their own idea how that word“ease” actually applies to what they are doing, but after speakingto Nort Salz about it I have three recommendations from him to passon.

Salz is the founder and president of Deep Customer Connections,a research and consulting group for the insurance industry, andregularly discusses this particular issue with carriers andagencies.

He's developed three points that every insurer—no matter whichend of the distribution channel you reside on—needs to bring intotheir organization.

The three points from Salz are:

1) The agency/carrier relationship will only work if there isstrong, sustainable leadership from the top.

2) Ease of doing business is not a project, it's a culture.Carriers need to breathe it into the entire organization andeverybody, in some way or another, has an effect on that.

3) You have to find a way to reinforce ease of doing business sopeople within the organization get feedback to support what they'redoing.

There are no great insights into these recommendations, justcommon sense. But I don't think any of us should be surprised thatsomeone needs to keep hammering home these points because, astechnology keeps moving, ease of doing business doesn't stand stilleither.

What it all comes back to, though, is that what's easy forCarrier A is not necessarily easy for Agency B. Understanding theissues that each side is facing may not make things easier foreither side, but it opens the line of communications and that'shalf the battle.