Four years ago, Apple trademarked the phrase, "There's an appfor that." With more than 1.2 million offerings in the iTunes AppStore — and about 1.4 million in Google Play — it would seem thatthe phrase is more true than not. However, only a fewgeneral-market agent productivity apps exist, and none have morethan a few reviews from users.

"It's a relatively small number of agents who are usinginsurance-specific apps today," says Chad Hersh, senior vicepresident at The Nolan Co., an insurance management consultingfirm. "Granted, a lot of agents use general apps on their mobiledevices to the extent that many people do in their daily lives andjobs, but the penetration just isn't there for insurance apps foragents."

"I have many apps installed on my phone, but most of them arenot insurance specific, nor are they specifically used for mybusiness," says George Page, president of Page Insurance inGuilford, Conn. "Bottom line, I use my phone [mainly] for calls,texts and e-mail. After that it's a mixed bag of PayPal, a weatherapp, Facebook, Feedly, Capital One, Google Maps, Ring Central andAlarm.com."

Mobile Opportunity

Ed Higgins, vice president of Thousand Islands Insurance Agencyin Clayton, N.Y., and vice chair at the Applied Client Network,says he believes that independent agents are missing out on theopportunity that mobile apps provide.

"Unfortunately, there is very little mobile app adoption amongagents," he says. "However, mobile can be an incredibly useful toolfor agents. More importantly, customers' expectations for mobilecapabilities — and the ability for agents to provide service whenagents are mobile — are increasing. The market paradigm haschanged, and that is an alarm agents should be hearing."

Thousand Islands Agency was an early adopter of the MobileProducer, the mobile-app version of Applied System'sagency management platform. For Higgins, the key benefit of the appis the ability to deliver what he calls the "Starbucks experience"for customers.

"Starbucks has mastered the process of delivering targetedinformation at those tiny little moments at the point of sale thatcustomers need or that cause customers to take action," he says."What MobileProducer does is deliver a small snippet of informationat just the right time for me. Being able to identify, forinstance, details of a client's physical damage coverage andservicing that client at 10 p.m. on a weekend as a result, is agreat way to build a long-term relationship."

"Agents love to be across from a customer and have theinformation they need at their fingertips," says Hersh.

Since first introducing the app to agents in 2012, ThousandIslands has enhanced it by adding dictation capabilities via DragonNaturallySpeaking. "That improved the workflow by replacing theneed to use a small virtual keyboard of a mobile device with theability to simply dictate activity detail into a client file,"Higgins says.

Thousand Islands is looking at ways to expand the reach of theapp for agency management, including in the prospecting process."MobileProducer allows you to do a complete new-business risksurvey analysis in the field by capturing data, creating a newclient record, and collecting information application. We're stillevaluating how useful that capability would be for us," Higginssays.

Other agency management vendors, including Vertafore and QQSolutions, offer mobile-app versions of their platform as well. Inaddition, agents can choose sales and service apps for agentsprovided by carriers or MGAs. In August 2014, Burns & Wilcoxjoined the fray by introducing a sales app, available in both theiTunes App Store and Google Play, for recreational marineinsurance.

"We felt it was important to give agents a mobile applicationthat would enable them to actually transact business, rather thanjust provide them with promotional information. We felt that givingthe agents an app they could use while on the docks or at themarina would be convenient and efficient," says Bill Gatewood,corporate vice president and director of personal insurance.

"As we continue to move forward in mobile app development, wewill look for applications that help agents and brokers writebusiness in a more efficient manner. We also have the ability topersonalize the application so our partners can make it their ownand add additional lines of coverage they sell in their office. Wecan help our agents and brokers create their own mobile app for afraction of the cost they would normally incur," Gatewoodclaims.

Through the mobile app, agents and brokers can complete arecreational watercraft application and send it directly to theBurns & Wilcox marine underwriting team. Agents can request anapplication be emailed directly to them, submit a questionregarding a watercraft or coverage, upload photos of a boat, andaccess marine-related information and FAQs.

With the app new to the market and the boating season in hiatusin many areas of the U.S., usage of the app by retail agents hasbeen slow by design. "We launched the mobile app with littlefanfare since the boating season was nearly over and we wanted tobe sure it worked as expected. Our plan is to push it hard inFebruary as the season begins," says Gatewood.

Burns & Wilcox is developing a second mobile app that willallow Canadian retail brokers to submit U.S. risks to Burns &Wilcox's cross border team. "We think that also provides someconvenience to retail brokers — we will see," Gatewood says.

Dual-Purpose

Also available for agents are dual-purpose apps, designed foragencies to offer to customers as a self-service tool but which canalso be used for agency productivity and agent-delivered customerservice. One offering on both the Apple and Android marketplaces isthe aptly named Insurance Agent from goinsuranceagent.com.

"Insurance Agent is an interesting take on the consumer-facingmobile app," Hersh says. "It's like a carrier app from thecustomer's point of view, but it's offered by the agency so itallows the agency to both build customer relationships and captureinformation more easily from clients."

"If the agent is going to stay a critical part of the trianglebetween carriers, consumers, and the agency, the app [offered toconsumers] needs to keep agency in the loop. When you go carrier tocustomer, as carriers are going, those apps aren't helping theagency because they cut the agency out or fragments the industry,"says goinsuranceagent.com's Kiki Johnson.

Paradiso Insurance, headquartered in Stafford Springs, Conn.,introduced an agency-branded version of the Insurance Agent app tocustomers in October 2014. The app allows customers to perform anumber of common servicing functions, including paying a bill,calling or e-mailing the agent without having to look up a numberor address, storing insurance cards, vehicle registration and otherinformation, and reporting claims.

"We've had a great success rate with reporting claims. Peoplelike it," says agency owner Chris Paradiso. The app syncs with theagency's QQ Solutions management system to deliver insurance cardsand other documents in near real-time.

"Car-buying is a key touch point with customers," Paradiso says."If you call me and you want an insurance card because you bought anew car, as soon as we hang up that insurance card is sittinginside your app on your phone. That's a powerful capability."

From an agency management perspective, the app delivers ParadisoInsurance several key benefits. First is communication. "We use theapp for sending texting-type messages to individual consumers,"Paradiso says. "Texting is more effective than an e-mail becausepeople pay attention to it more — it's immediate."

The agency also provides safety-related information to customersvia the app, including videos and vehicle logs. It also uses theapp for push notifications; for instance, when a winter stormapproaches, the agency uses the app to advise customers to cleartheir roof of snow.

By controlling the app, the agency also is able to analyzecustomer activity and use the results in relationship building."The downside of carrier apps is that they don't provide any realtracking for agency owners. If you can't see who is downloading theapp and what they're using it for, what good is that? It's likehaving a website without analytics," says Paradiso.

Insurance Agent provides a dashboard that delivers currentinformation and analytics. "Having information stored and synced onthe dashboard allows agents to use that information for upsellingand cross-selling opportunity, compared to carrier apps," Johnsonsays.

The Case for Mobile

Other agents, including Page, are still unconvinced that manyconsumers need or want apps from their agent. "With respect toconsumer-facing mobile apps, I've looked at the few offerings andI'm thoroughly unimpressed," he says. "For starters, very fewpeople will want an insurance app. If given the choice to downloadCandy Crush or a mobile insurance agency app — well, enoughsaid."

However, Johnson believes that offering customers an app isbecoming a competitive necessity in particular for independentagents.

"The industry fell behind with creating websites, but could getaway with it because the competition wasn't there. Today, thecompetition is there [for mobile]. The direct writers are there whocan build mobile capabilities to do everything that needs to bedone, and they've got the money on the mobile side to build appsthat are equivalent to what banking or commerce is doing, oranybody else," Johnson says.

"The insurance industry doesn't have the luxury of saying,'We'll wait on this one and see how it goes, because mobile isn'tgoing away," she adds. "It will be more and more pervasive."

Paradiso Insurance has achieved a 40 percent mobile-apppenetration among customers, but has had to work hard to achievethat level.

"We send out cards and mailers, we use LinkedIn, Twitter, Vine,we do e-mails to build awareness. We try to hit them from everydirection," Paradiso says.

Higgins believes that agents will increase their use of mobileapps for agency management in the months ahead.

"There is not currently the kind of aggressive, visible pressurefor agents to use mobile apps, but that is changing," he says."Agents need to take a broader view and recognize that the world isgoing mobile. Our customers have the capacity to have services thatserve them at their moment of need, and they expect the same fromus."

"It's a bit of a calm before the storm," Hersh says. "Theremight not be a reason now where you must have an app for youragents, but that will change. The tipping point is close."